Zikaron
by madame.alexandra
Summary: Grieving is hard enough the first time around. When an onslaught of memories after his coma affects Gibbs' life at home, Jenny sends him to Mexico to sort himself out. Mishpokhe universe.
1. Epilogue

**"Zikaron"** _\- english transliteration of the Hebrew word for "Memory."_

* * *

**Prologue**

**May, 2008.**

* * *

"Goodnight, Kelly."

She peeked at him out of a closed eye and scrunched up her face a little, her small brows furrowed – it only took him a moment to correct himself – he'd said the wrong name as he bent down to kiss her on the forehead, and as his lips met her temple he flinched and he was already mumbling –

"'Night, Madel – Emmy."

-to her in a careful, apologetic way. He hesitated before he sat back, and she smiled at him and nodded, closing her eyes. His hand lingered on her shoulder and he squeezed tightly, apologizing again, and on his lips were the words –

"Don't tell Mommy."

-but Mommy had come in to supervise him reading to her, and she could hear _anything_ – Mommy had _impeccable_ hearing when it came to catching Daddy – and Madeleine heard her say 'Jethro' in a sharp, soft voice as he got up and left the room.

He shut Madeleine's door tightly and she frowned, turning over and reaching for a stuffed animal – she liked to sleep with the door open a crack, so she could see across the hall to their bedroom – but he kept forgetting that. She'd have to wait a little bit, and then run and open it herself – she didn't want him to feel bad for forgetting again. She closed her eyes and decided to count to sixty – a whole minute – and even use the word Mississippi to make it like real, genuine seconds. By then, Daddy would probably be in the basement, or maybe watching Mommy watch the news – but probably the basement – and he'd never know he messed up again.

Madeleine was trying very hard to make Daddy feel like he wasn't messing up. It didn't bother her that much. She didn't like being called Kelly – mostly because it made her feel like she wasn't as good or as cute as her dead sister – but she knew his head was hurt really badly, and he wasn't doing it on purpose. That's exactly what Ziva kept telling her – that he didn't even realize he was doing it.

Ziva and Abby and even Tony said nicer things than what Mr. Mike Franks had said before he left – but Mommy had yelled at him, when she overheard – Madeleine wasn't sure if she liked that guy; he'd been gruff and mean and growly, and he'd made Daddy act like McGee acted sometimes – a _probie_ – and he'd said –

"He just has to get used to you, pumpkin."

-and Madeleine didn't like being called _pumpkin_ at all, and she didn't think her own father should have to get used to her. Mommy had been furious that Mr. Mike Franks said that; she'd yelled at him right in front of Madeleine, and she usually didn't lose her temper that badly in front of her daughter.

Madeleine opened her eyes and stared at her stuffed animal – his name was Tin Man and he was a grey bear. She'd gotten him at a carnival two years ago – Tony won him for her. She stared at his glassy, marble-like eyes and scrunched her nose, frowning. She'd accidentally lost track of her counting in her head, and she tried hard to remember where she was.

That's when she heard a door slam, and her father's voice as he raised it.

"—_the hell did you do that for, Jen_?"

She widened her eyes at Tin Man, and opened her mouth a little. She didn't hear her mother answer, but she raised her eyebrows. Then she heard some muffled, tense words, and it got quiet again. She sat up a little, completely abandoning her count. She heard footsteps, and feet went past her door.

"—can't just cut off the electricity – "

"I said I wanted to talk to you – you can't just shut yourself in the basement, Jethro – "

It sounded like her mother was going into the bathroom, because the voices were so close. There was nothing, and then she heard her mother speak again –

"Keep your voice down. Don't wake her up."

Daddy didn't get quieter, though, even though Mommy did and the footsteps faded away – they were going back to the living room.

"What the hell do you want to talk about that can't wait – "

"Can't wait?" Mommy did raise her voice now. "I've been waiting three weeks and you haven't gotten better. You haven't _pulled_ it together. I'm not doing this. I can't keep doing this."

"What are you talkin' about, Jen?" demanded Daddy loudly.

Madeleine got up and crept towards her door. She opened it a little and knelt down, peering out. She could hear better with it opened slightly. She stared across the hall into the empty bedroom – her parents were down the hall.

" – down in the basement, pretending you're working on that boat – but you're just hiding, trying to minimize time with me so you don't slip up, don't call me Shannon, don't call your daughter Kelly – "

"'M not pretending! Boat's a lot of work!"

"You're missing the point – you called her Kelly _again_, Jethro – you're not getting better; you're getting worse. This was understandable right after the coma, it made sense – now it's scary, and it's unacceptable – "

Her father said something nasty – bad words – and she heard a slamming noise, like he'd kicked something. Madeleine winced and bit her lip – her parents bickered often, but it always seemed like a game. This didn't sound playful or funny. It sounded like they were really fighting.

"—some slack, Jenny, I had to get seventeen years back in three days – "

"I understand that! The point is – you aren't _getting_ it back. Two days ago, you said something about missing Madeleine's birth because you were deployed – you got her name right, but the rest is all wrong – you keep calling DiNozzo _Decker,_ and those are your good days because at least then you call me Jenny consistently and not 'Shan-Jen' – "

"Christ, Jenny, it's just the words gettin' mixed up in my head, s'not like I forgot who you are or who Emmy is – "

"It _is_ like that, Jethro, it is! Do you honestly not understand that you are _scaring_ Madeleine? You're hurting her?"

"She's fine, Jen, it's you who's so goddamn insecure about the whole thing – like I'm gonna run off and leave you – "

"No. No! This isn't insecurity, this is – "

"_You_ don't want to get married, but I remember for a second that I had another wife and it's all to hell for you –"

"_Goddamnit_, Jethro, you're deliberately ignoring me!"

Mommy was shouting now, and Madeleine leaned against her wall, her ear against the open door crack.

"Madeleine is fine – "

"_Madeleine_ has been listening to you call her _Kelly_ since you woke up!" Jenny broke in loudly. "_Madeleine_ has been opening her door at night because she doesn't sleep with it shut – but Kelly did. _Madeleine_ has been quietly picking bananas out of her Cheerios in the morning because she hates them – but Kelly didn't. _Madeleine_ has listened to you read Kelly's favorite story to her for the past week because she's scared you'll get mad at her if she corrects you – and _Madeleine_ has heard you call her mother by the wrong woman's name too many fucking times for _this_ to be okay."

Madeleine pulled her knees up to her chest, a lump in her throat – Mommy was telling the truth, but Madeleine didn't want her to yell at Daddy about it and make him feel bad. It was just his head that was all scrambled –

Three weeks ago, he'd been in an explosion and they had been scared he was going to die. Tony had to take over the team and Mommy had to be at NCIS all the time and no one would tell Madeleine what was really going on until Daddy woke up – and then for three days he hadn't known who Madeleine or Mommy were, he'd just been confused and withdrawn – and he'd cut his hair so short Madeleine thought he looked like a soldier on TV.

Then there had been a big, awful case at NCIS that ended with lots of people dead – and both of her parents had been furious, and Mr. Mike Franks had been around trying to fix Daddy – and then quick as a snap Mommy had tried to make everything normal again – she decided they just needed to go back to a routine and it would just click for Daddy.

But it wasn't working. Mommy knew it, and Madeleine knew it – and Daddy probably knew it too, but he was stubborn and he wouldn't want to admit something like that.

Madeleine sat forward a little bit, shaking her head and trying to hear more – her parents were yelling now, back and forth, quickly – sometimes she couldn't understand a lot of it, and they kept moving around. She was afraid to peek out more, because she didn't want to get caught out of bed.

"—need time, Jen—"

"—no, therapy – and – "

"—not seeing a goddamn shrink—"

"—I'll take Madeleine to my house until – "

"—you take her away from me and so help me God, Jenny – "

"—listen to yourself!" Mommy screamed hoarsely. "You're _threatening_ me, Jethro – "

"I wouldn't _hurt_ you –

"I know you wouldn't hurt me – you aren't you, you're – you're – you're Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs, I don't know him, _Maddie_ doesn't know him! I don't know who you are right now and I cannot have it around her anymore – "

"Then you can go, Jen, - you go right ahead and move back to your goddamn townhouse – but I'll be damned if you take Emmy with you – "

Madeleine scrambled back as she heard footsteps, and Daddy stormed into his bedroom and thrust the light on. She heard him storming around, and then Mommy ran in.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded in a lowered voice.

"Packing your things," Daddy growled.

Mommy did something – she laughed, but maybe it was crying – and she put her hands on her hips.

"Stop – Jethro, stop this – _stop_!" she ordered aggressively.

Daddy must have stopped. Madeleine held her breath and tried not to cry – but her eyes were stinging and she felt sick – she wanted them to stop. She didn't think Mommy was being very nice – but Mom was always right, she _was._ She had been right when she sent Madeleine to live in America, and she'd been right to keep Ziva here away from mean old Eli. Madeleine knew she was right about this, too. That didn't stop her from being eight years old and wishing she could just wave a magic wand and make it so the explosion never happened.

"_No_," she heard Daddy say firmly.

"Yes."

Mommy sounded resigned.

"No – "

"It isn't negotiable. I spoke to him over the weekend. You – "

"You're kicking me out?"

"You are going to leave – you are going to get better – and you can come back when your head is clear and you know exactly who you're living with, and what your life is –"

"Jen – "

"You have to grieve all over again, Jethro, and so help me God you're going to do it right this time – I know Madeleine forced you to do it eight years ago – but this time, you can't use us as a crutch – you might not even be having this problem if you'd just let it go—"

"I am not going to let it go, Jenny – _they were murdered!" _Daddy bellowed. "You leave me, you take Madeleine, you send me to Siberia – it doesn't change anything! They're still dead! It's still gonna kill me – "

"That's exactly what I need you to realize!" shouted Mom over him, standing her ground. "You're going to Mexico – you're going to be alone, to grieve, to hate yourself, to deal with this – without distractions, without ways to numb yourself – "

"Without my daughter!"

"Yes, without your daughter!" yelled Mommy. "Without her, without me – maybe that will teach you how goddamn important we are to you and you can begin to understand how painful it is to live with you when you're like this – "

"You sure I'll come back, Jen?" he snarled suddenly.

It was mean, and cruel, and Madeleine saw Mommy take a step back and lower her hand from her hip. Madeleine stood up and opened her door, her heart beating very fast. She blinked her eyes and swallowed a few times, creeping out hesitantly – they'd probably stop fighting if they saw her.

"If you think that what I'm making you do now is the end of our relationship, then that's my answer. That's the answer to me wondering if I'll ever be able to live up to Shannon. I can live with you not coming back," she said, "but if you break my daughter's heart like that, I'll cut yours out."

Madeleine clutched the edge of her pajama shirt in her hands and rubbed her foot against her ankle, staring at them. Daddy saw her first, and he stared at her silently, his eyes hard and cool. When he said nothing, Mommy whirled around, and she turned so pale she looked sick, and Madeleine was even more scared.

She hadn't ever heard her parents threaten each other before. She wondered if they used to be like this, before she was born – sometimes, Daddy said Mom made him a better person, and Mommy rolled her eyes and said he softened her edges, too – maybe before Madeleine, they had always been like this.

"Madeleine," Mommy began gently – but she sounded so tense, it wasn't comforting.

"Is Daddy leaving?" Madeleine asked.

"No," he said immediately: stubbornly.

"Madeleine," Jenny said again.

"Are you getting divorced?"

"Your mother seems to think so," Daddy said harshly, and Mommy whirled around.

"Divorced?" she said. "We're not married – Jethro, we're not _married_."

He thrust out his hand.

"You think I wore a tux in front of your family for f – " he broke off, his eyes flickering a little.

"I'm not her," Mommy said coldly. "You never married me."

Daddy looked stricken, then blank.

"I know," he grunted, and he rubbed his jaw.

Madeleine stood there, watching them.

"Jen," Daddy said. "It'd help if you – put your hair up," he muttered.

She stood there, and Madeleine looked up and noticed she was crying – Mommy was crying. She wiped her cheeks violently and looked back to Madeleine. She took a few steps, crouched down, and smiled.

"Go back to bed, sweetheart," she said softly. "I will come lay with you until you fall asleep, okay? I promise. Two minutes, and I'll come, okay?"

Madeleine looked past her. She felt better now that Mommy was touching her, putting her warm, caring hands on her shoulders, but she wanted to know Daddy was going to be okay. She bit the insides of her cheeks and furrowed her brow, trying to think of something to say.

"I don't mind picking out the bananas," she whispered.

Her father stared at her, and he sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, his elbows colliding with his knees. He put his head in his hands. Mommy turned around and looked at him, and when Daddy looked up, he met her eyes and nodded – like he understood.

"Go with your mom, Kel – " Madeleine winced, but tried to smile. "—Madeline."

He tripped over his words correcting himself, and Madeleine said:

"Emmy."

She tried to be helpful, but it looked like she just made him feel worse.

"And it's just – 'maddah-lynn,' she whispered. "Not _line_."

Her father gave her a pained look.

"That movie you watch," he started, half-hearted, gruff. "The twelve little girls, in two straight lines…" he trailed off, as his little girl shook her head, and Jenny mouthed –

_Kelly_.

Daddy got up and walked into the bathroom. He shut the door, and Madeleine heard it lock. She looked to her mother with wide green eyes, and Mommy leaned forward and pulled Madeleine in close, hugging her tightly.

She kept whispering, softly, an old Hebrew lullaby, and Madeleine stared at the closed bathroom door.

* * *

Things happened very quickly after the big fight. Madeleine had breakfast the next morning in a very normal environment – tense normal, she could tell – with no bananas in her cereal. She went to school, and when she came home, Mommy was there early and Daddy was packing.

Mommy told her Daddy was going to Mexico for a while to heal some more. Mr. Mike Franks was going to take care of him, but Daddy wasn't ready to talk to Madeleine about it yet. She tried to sound calm and light about it, but Madeleine sensed she was still upset.

She cooked dinner, and then Madeleine went and watched Daddy pack. He never said anything, but he smiled at her and kissed her forehead when she went to her room and got a stuffed animal and brought it to him. She went back in to her room when it was time to read books – but Mommy did the reading, and that night, the house was completely silent when the door was left cracked open.

Then suddenly they were at the airport right before security, and Daddy had only a big green military backpack with him, and Mommy was hugging Madeleine tightly to her side.

"You gonna tell me when I can come back?" he asked gruffly.

Mommy took a deep breath.

"You have to figure that out," she said firmly.

He was silent.

"Jen," he said.

Mommy shook her head. Madeleine didn't think she wanted to hear him apologize or anything, it might sting too much, or make it harder to say goodbye. Madeleine knew she didn't really want Daddy to go.

Instead of trying again, Daddy sank to his knees and reached for Madeleine. She darted to him, and smiled when he gripped her shoulders and met her eyes bravely, clearing his throat.

"You don't remember this," he said gruffly, "but it's like Israel."

Madeleine nodded slowly, listening.

"I couldn't always stay in Israel, but I didn't forget you," her father went on stiffly. His jaw was all locked up tight, like it was hurting him to talk. "I always came back."

She nodded again, and she reached in to the little purse she brought with her and pushed some coloured paper into his hands.

"Mommy said it's okay to write me letters," she said in a small voice. She pointed. "I wrote 'Emmy' on the top for you, so it's easier to remember."

He looked down, and that's when Gibbs knew Jen was right – he had to go; he had to get it together, snap out of this – he had to get better. He couldn't be Madeleine's father if she needed to write her name on paper for him so he'd get it right.

He folded the paper and tucked it into his jacket close to his heart. He pulled her close and kissed the side of her head, hugging her tightly. He closed his eyes – he didn't know when he'd see her again, and he tried to believe what he'd said: this was like Israel, and he could do it –- for Madeleine.

He swallowed hard and took a steadying breath.

"I love you, baby," he said hoarsely, just low enough for only her to hear.

She nodded. She knew he did; she knew he always would. He kissed her temple again, and she gave him a peck on the cheek as he reluctantly let her go, let her walk back to her mother. Madeleine leaned against Mommy, and wondered what she'd say to him before he left.

Mommy stepped forward and rested her hand on his chest lightly.

"I love you," she said clearly, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth.

When she pulled back, Daddy stared at her, and the words Madeleine had heard him use before – not all the time, but enough – never came – and that's when Daddy seemed to look like he understood, and Mommy nodded her head slightly.

"When you can say it again," she said quietly. "That's when."

She answered his early question – and he set his jaw with resolve.

Madeleine snuggled closer to her mother's side, and vaguely remembered that there had been a time, when she was little, when she _never_ heard Daddy tell her mother he loved her.

* * *

Hours later, he trudged across an uneven, sandy Baja beach, a cap pulled low over his eyes to hide him from the boiling sun. He headed towards a ramshackle cottage on the edge of the ocean, thinking hazily of the desert heat of Israel, and of the first time he'd walked in Tel Aviv – the first time he'd met Ziva David –

That was another time he'd walked heavily and uncertainly towards something he hadn't figured out yet – that was when he'd found out Jen was back in his life; when he'd found out about Madeleine.

Now – he trudged lost, less curious, more resigned – and the redhead was behind him instead of in front; it wasn't Ziva meeting him, it was Mike Franks, and the only thing he could think of was Madeleine's wide blue – no, they were green – eyes as he left with no idea when he was coming back.

It made him think of the last time he'd seen Kelly.

"Probie," shouted Mike, slapping him on the back and squinting in the sunlight. He threw a cigarette down and put his hands out, yanking Gibbs' bag off his shoulder. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

Gibbs looked up, blinking in the sun. He cleared his throat, and shrugged – half-mumbled an answer.

"Spit it out," barked Franks, and Gibbs shrugged again.

"Mishpokhe," he grunted.

"The hell's that, Jethro?" Franks groused.

Gibbs glanced around – hot sand, hot air, sparkling water – isolation for miles. He tilted his head back and shook it, blinking rapidly to try and clear his vision – figure out who he was seeing, who he was missing, and why he had to be here.

He thought about it too long, until Franks gave him a rough slap to the back of the head, and asked again – and Gibbs answered Mike's question –

"That's what I got to remember."

* * *

_surprise, bitches._  
_i bet you thought you'd seen the last of this._

_-Alexandra_  
_story #212_

_-Happy Birthday to Madeleine!_


	2. One

a/n: thank you so much for the awesome response to the prologue! i hope you like the remaining three chapters as much!

* * *

**June 2008 - about a month later. **

Madeleine Jane Gibbs sat quietly on a bench in the front of her elementary school, her backpack sitting neatly by her ankles as they dangled above the scuffed concrete. She kept her hands placed daintily on a brand new library book she'd checked out for a book report, and squinted her eyes slightly in the sun. Next to her stood a slightly frantic, worried teacher with very short blonde hair and a very inexperienced look in her eyes.

"Does this happen often, Madeleine?" the teacher asked cautiously.

She had been waiting for Madeleine's mother to pick her up for nearly an hour now, and she was terrified the young girl's parent wasn't going to show up.

"No, ma'am," Madeleine answered calmly, turning her head and lifting her eyes. She beamed. "It's okay, Miss Earl," she placated in her calm, eight-year-old voice. "She's very busy."

"You're _sure_ we shouldn't call her again?"

Madeleine nodded – Miss Earl was a brand new teacher; Madeleine's class was her first _ever_. She was anxious to do well, and very socially conscious, and she was constantly afraid she'd run into some odd situation with a student that required her to use her counseling skills. Madeleine thought she was very funny; like a scared rabbit – but, she was a really good teacher. She had a special way of helping Madeleine understand science.

"I'm sorry you have to stay with me," Madeleine said sincerely. "Maybe you have a boyfriend you have to go see."

Miss Earl laughed, and shook her head.

"Oh, I don't mind staying," she soothed. "I just worry someone forgot you."

Madeleine crinkled her nose.

"No one forgets me," she said emphatically. She pursed her lips, and put a hand on her hip, mimicking her mother. "Mom has a very important job," she confided, and then arched a small eyebrow. "She might be with the president."

Miss Earl was on the verge of asking what Madeleine's mother did for a living when a black car with federal plates showed up, slowing to a stop at the pick-up circle in front of the school. The engine died, and then half a second later a tall, dashing man was stepping out and waving a hand with keys in it over the car.

"Hey, Maddie!" he called, a sly grin lighting up his face.

Madeleine hopped off of her chair eagerly and yanked her backpack up, tucking her book under her arm.

"Pony!" she cried, darting towards the curb.

Miss Earl leapt forward, alarmed, and held her hand out to keep Madeleine back.

"Who is this?" she asked quickly. "Who are you?" she corrected, directing a sharper question at the man.

"Ah," he said, holding up a finger. He came around the car and grabbed a leather object out of his pocket. First, he showed Miss Earl a shiny badge, and a dusty identification card; then he pulled from a pocket in his wallet a crumpled copy of Madeleine's emergency contact list: his name was written clearly in under _Leroy Jethro Gibbs_ and _Jennifer Shepard._

"Mr. DiNozzo?" Miss Early said.

"Special Agent Tony DiNozzo," he said charmingly, extending his hand and flashing another winning smile. "Here to pick-up the mini-Gibbs," he revealed, and pointed at the car. "Back-seat, booster seat is already strapped in," he said smoothly to Madeleine.

"Where's Mom?" Madeleine asked, as she hopped over.

DiNozzo gave her a wink, and shrugged.

"There was an incident; she's in MTAC," he said.

"What took you so long, Pony?"

"Had to drive from a scene in Manassas," he answered.

Madeleine giggled, and she waved goodbye to her teacher, climbing in the car. Miss Earl looked thoroughly confused, and bit her lip. She pushed back a bit of her short blonde hair and pulled at her earlobe, glancing back at the school.

"How exactly are you related to Madeleine?" she asked warily.

"I'm her godfather," DiNozzo answered, affecting a Marlon Brando accent.

The teacher looked a little nervous still, and DiNozzo waved his hand.

"She said her mother is important?" Miss Earl asked, and DiNozzo gave her a slightly incredulous look – because Madeleine was in public school, which was rare for the children of high up government officials, extra security precautions were sometimes taken – DiNozzo didn't know how it was possible that this teacher didn't know who Madeleine's mother was.

He grinned, and nodded his head.

"Yeah, she's got some street cred," he joked, turning and waving with jingling keys as he walked back to the car. "She's the Director of NCIS," he shouted to her – and he shook his head with a laugh at the startled look on her face.

He turned around to look at Madeleine as he started the car, and his face was apologetic.

"I am real sorry, kid," he said. "She couldn't get away – "

Madeleine smiled at him, and tilted her head. She waved her hand in an 'it's nothing!' motion she'd seen adults use all the time.

"You bummed I'm the one who showed up?" DiNozzo asked.

"Pony," Madeleine said matter-of-factly. "I love you."

He laughed shortly, and turned around, hitting the gas carefully.

"Yeah, yeah," he agreed, and glanced in the rearview mirror at her warily – under his breath he added: "but I'm not Gibbs."

* * *

Things hadn't quite gotten back to normal, DiNozzo noted, as he rode the elevator up with Madeleine standing silently beside him – but then, he wasn't sure things were ever going to be normal, with Gibbs in Mexico and himself at the head agent's desk. Things were settling down, perhaps, a month after the – explosion – but nothing was normal, and that was glaringly obvious because – well, it had been almost exactly three years since DiNozzo had picked Madeleine up from anywhere; Gibbs had always, always made sure either he or Jenny was available to do it.

Especially on Mondays.

Even after Jenny had settled in as Director, and Madeleine had gotten really into school – as a grade-schooler, not a mere kindergartener! – Mondays had still been reserved for her to come hang around NCIS with the gang. It meant she got to hold on to some vestige of the old days – and blend it with the new – and her parents got to take a day to work late, since Jenny took half days on Friday for Madeleine, and Gibbs put DiNozzo in charge on weekends so he could be around for softball games or birthday parties or anything Madeleine needed.

It was a good system – it worked, everyone liked it, for the most part, though sometimes work got the best of them and Madeleine was left with Noemi for days, or Jackson Gibbs was called up to be with her – but that was as rare as Jenny and Gibbs could manage, and for the most part, the system they had woven in with their demanding and dangerous jobs worked –

It was all to hell now – but it had worked, and DiNozzo thought about that feebly as he got off the elevator and plastered a charming smile on his face –

This was the first time Madeleine had been at NCIS since her father had left for Mexico.

Her mother just hadn't thought it was a good idea – she hadn't wanted a constant reminder – an additional constant reminder – that Gibbs wasn't around for the time being, so she'd kept Madeleine focused on school and sports and friends for a bit, though she gladly allowed the team to visit. DiNozzo wasn't sure if it had worked or not – Madeleine had just seemed a little startled by the whole thing, in his opinion: she hadn't cried or moped or been visibly depressed after Gibbs left – or rather, was kicked out, as Ziva quietly informed them all – she had just gotten a wide-eyed look of acceptance that made them all feel a little guilty for being unable to explain it to her.

DiNozzo, Abby, even Ziva – they'd been pissed at first; furious at Jenny – but then she'd justified herself to Ziva, and Ziva had subtly passed along the message: Gibbs wasn't doing as well as he'd have had them all believe, and a mother had to do what she had to do. DiNozzo, for one, still wasn't sure giving him the boot was the nicest way to go about it, but he didn't know what it was like to be called another woman's name for weeks on end, so he kept his opinions to himself.

He leaned over and nudged Madeleine slightly, then ruffled her hair. She looked up at him and winked, but he sensed she was a little put off. He cleared his throat and marched into the bullpen, pointing at himself.

"I know, I know I've been missed – but I'm back, put your fears to rest – and look who I've got!" he thrust his outstretched hands towards her. "The most magnificent, miraculously majestic – Miss Mad Maddie!"

"If you need another 'm' – melodramatic applies," drawled Ziva – as she got up and smiled warmly at the little girl.

Madeleine struck a pose and tossed back her hair as if she were a show pony, grinning smartly at Ziva.

"Melodramatic," she repeated firmly. "_I_ know what that means."

"You are a very smart child," Ziva retorted proudly.

"What's it mean, Maddie?" McGee asked wryly, leaning back in his chair for a much needed break – he'd been running bank accounts for a case all day, and that part of work was boring as hell.

Madeleine shrugged.

"It means Tony," she said slyly.

"You learn that at school?" McGee asked with a snort.

"Um, no, Mommy told me," she retorted, and cocked her head. She darted towards the desk next to Ziva's. "Today, actually, I learned that most ducks aren't yellow, so cartoons lie."

McGee winced slightly as she skidded to a stop with one hand on the desk and one hand on the arm of the chair – suddenly staring up at DiNozzo with her lips parted in confusion. He stared back at her with wary eyes, and Ziva winced.

She hadn't been at NCIS in weeks – she wasn't used to the changes.

She bit her lip, and then she frowned.

"This isn't your desk," she said.

DiNozzo flashed a grin at her.

"You got me, kid," he agreed. "Must've forgot."

"_You_ aren't the one with a scrambled brain," Madeleine retorted, not returning his smile. "This is Daddy's desk."

"'Course it is," DiNozzo said immediately. "I'm just sittin' here, Maddie, it's the team leader's desk."

"But he's team leader."

"Madeleine," Ziva began diplomatically.

"_No_," Madeleine said, her voice tinged with a whine. "Pony," she said emphatically, her eyes big and boring into his. "You can't sit here. He's coming _back_," she said. "He has to sit here when he comes back."

DiNozzo nodded, but he didn't move, still uncertain.

"Tony," she said, using his real name. "He is coming back, right?"

DiNozzo snapped out of it, shaking his head. He nodded firmly, his eyes on his goddaughter's.

"Madeleine," he said, "he's coming back. I promise. We just thought it would be better if his desk weren't the empty one. We didn't like it empty."

"I don't like it empty either," she retorted. She put a hand on her hip. "I think I should sit in it."

DiNozzo looked at his teammates, and both of them gave him annoyed looks and nodded emphatically – let her take up residence at Gibbs' desk! If Jenny got mad about it, they'd deal with it later. It shouldn't be something that particularly pissed off the Director – but these days, Jenny got mad about the smallest things.

He stepped to the side gallantly and held the swiveling chair for Madeleine. She clambered into it with grace and sat at the desk, peering around all of it with those eyes that were as green as her mother's and yet _somehow_ still Gibbs' to the core. Ziva raised an eyebrow, and sat, satisfied.

DiNozzo retreated to his own desk, slightly mollified and concerned – but somehow, he found it fitting. He leaned back and watched her a moment, and then he grinned. The phone rang, and Madeleine peeked at it, squinting her eyes.

"Timmy?" she asked politely. "Is the code for the lab still full of sevens?"

"Yes ma'am," McGee answered.

Madeleine picked up the phone swiftly. She cleared her throat.

"What do you got, Abs?" she imitated.

The team winced when they heard Abby's shriek of excitement through the line.

* * *

Though she had just seen her the past Thursday, Abby had Madeleine in a tight, vice-like grip – she clutched the little girl to her side in a half-hug as she worked, refusing to let her go, and bubbling over with excitement. Madeleine grinned and allowed herself to be snuggled into the scientist, blinking with big, curious eyes at the databases scanning on Abby's computer.

"Whom are you trying to find?" she asked.

"Not a who, a _what_!" Abby corrected. "I'm trying to figure out where exactly a certain soil company delivers and mulches, so I'm scanning the tri-state area – you know, you've gotten really good at your Gibbs impression; I almost thought it was him!"

Madeleine giggled.

"I don't sound like him, I'm too girly!" she protested. She lifted her eyebrows. "I've been practicing, though."

"I can tell," Abby said conspiratorially.

Madeleine tilted her head, her nose crinkling.

"I miss his voice," she said thoughtfully, blinking. Her lashes brushed her cheeks, and she widened her eyes again. "You know, I don't think Ima likes the impressions."

"Hmmm," Abby murmured diplomatically, squeezing Madeleine a little tighter and smiling down at her. "Well, maybe they make her feel bad. Or miss him."

Madeleine shrugged.

"I am _just_ trying to _cope_," she drawled astutely – and Abby grinned at her; she did love Madeleine so. Gibbs' daughter was such a smart little thing – she always had been, and nothing had changed.

"I am glad Maddie Mondays are back," Abby said sincerely. "It makes things feel a little more normal."

"Well," Madeleine said dryly, frowning a little. "I'm glad Mommy gave up pretending things were _normal_."

Abby let go of Madeleine and twirled around, kneeling gracefully next to her and peering into little green eyes with her own sage gaze. Her lips quirked up and she took Madeleine under the chin, puckering her lips at her – she gave her silent encouragement.

She had been unhappy, too, when she had first heard Gibbs had gone to Mexico indefinitely – she would never assert that she was as upset as Madeleine, but Abby Sciuto had been heartbroken, though she'd done her best to try and understand Jenny's reasoning, and to try and be strong for Madeleine – as Jenny requested. But – she missed Gibbs sorely, the same as the others did, and it had been almost impossible to go about business and act like things were just the same – maybe that had been a way of trying to force them all to get used to it, but this was better: Madeleine being here was sort of the signal that they could start to deal with Gibbs actually being gone, start talking about it.

Abby wondered what had triggered the subtle change in the Director's handling of the situation.

She hopped up, and tilted her head, her pigtails twitching.

"So," she began, cocking an eyebrow at Madeleine. "What sort of science experiment should we do today?"

Madeleine smiled eagerly.

"Classic," she suggested slyly.

"Classic?" parroted Abby. "That means – "

"Volcano!"

Madeleine chimed in, and they finished the sentence together – Abby figured such shenanigans were the perfect way to pass time while she ran her diagnostic searches.

* * *

Autopsy's doors swung open in an accommodating way, and Timothy McGee strode through them. He nodded amiably at Jimmy Palmer as he walked in, and stopped at the foot of the closest metal table – Ducky was elbow-deep in a body, and McGee wasn't one who liked to get too close at times like that.

"Ah, Timothy, what brings you to see me?" Ducky asked good-naturedly.

"Madeleine's here," McGee said promptly.

"And you are hiding from her?" Ducky answered, amused.

"No," McGee said quickly, eyebrows going up. "I thought you'd like to know."

Ducky beamed, and looked up, meeting the young agent's eyes amiably. He nodded in thanks, and went back to his work.

"Did Jennifer get away from her meeting?"

"Uh, things got a little dicey with whoever she was negotiating with," McGee answered grimly, wincing. "Tony went and picked Maddie up."

"I thought Anthony was at a crime scene?"

"Yeah, he left Ziva and me in charge of it and went to get Maddie at school."

"How did you and Ziva do?"

"Well, I only got walked all over by _one_ local LEO, and Ziva only made _two_ witnesses cry, so –"

"A rousing success," supplied Ducky, and McGee grinned.

Ducky stepped back with an organ in his hand and dropped it on a scale. He looked at the number and nodded thoughtfully, content to sit in silence with Timothy while Jimmy did something loudly (and slightly clumsily) in the storage room – taking inventory of medical supplies, most likely.

Ducky had seen Madeleine recently, when Jenny brought the little girl over so she could see all of Ducky's mother's dogs groomed and gussied up with ribbons and little bow ties – but Jenny was also keeping Madeleine fairly focused on – and busy with – school and sports and friends, and Ducky had thought that seemed smart of her. He knew Madeleine needed to be away from NCIS for a while – because first, it had been quite a scary place to be, when Gibbs was in the hospital and everyone was trying to catch a terrorist – and then, after Gibbs had been – sent away – it would have been difficult to adjust Madeleine to the whole situation if she kept coming to NCIS and staring at her father's empty desk.

She had seemed quite happy when she had come to see the corgis. Ducky supposed that overall, Madeleine was okay, so to speak. She had shown them all many times that she was a particularly resilient child, and Ducky knew from the subtleties in Jenny's conversation that the whole decision to make Gibbs take a break had been a difficult one – but a necessary one. It didn't take extensive psychological training for Ducky to acknowledge that Gibbs hadn't been recovering the way he needed to – he had been dangerously close to becoming stuck in a past he'd never recovered from.

Still, he felt like he should ask –

"How does Madeleine seem to you?"

McGee shrugged a little and frowned.

"Cheery and adorable," he said. "Like always. She, uh, - she got mad that Tony was sitting in Gibbs' chair, at his desk."

"Ah," Ducky murmured sympathetically.

"I think it made her feel like the situation was permanent," McGee added with a wince.

"It certainly is not," Ducky said optimistically.

McGee slipped his hands into his pockets and tilted his head thoughtfully. This whole thing had been something he'd been carefully and quietly minding his own business about – he thought it was a very twilight-zone sort of shake-up, having Gibbs gone and Tony incharge and this big – gap – where 'normal' was supposed to be – but he'd tried to take it in stride and go on as if this were just a typical evolution of the job. It wasn't, he knew, but he didn't know how else to handle it – and he'd done such a good job of acclimating himself to this new environment that Madeleine's presence was making him think all sorts of things – at first he thought it would never last, Tony in charge and Gibbs gone – but now he wondered what it would be like if –

"You don't think this will become permanent, then?" he asked aloud.

Ducky looked startled.

"Gibbs in Mexico?" he returned, clarifying what Timothy was asking.

McGee shrugged, and nodded.

"No, no, of course not. This, permanent? Not on your life."

"It's been a month," McGee muttered skeptically.

"A month is hardly a blink," Ducky said – and he smiled and started taking his gloves off and cleaning up for a little break. He saw the look on McGee's face, and he wanted to fix it – he didn't want McGee possibly conveying to poor Madeleine that her father wasn't coming back.

"Timothy," he began warmly. "From what I can tell – I think it's obvious to all of us, considering his mood on the day he packed his desk – Jethro did not _choose_ to leave of his own accord. That in _itself_ implies his desire to stay here with his family. Jennifer's decision to make him go was … a difficult one; I'm sure, but not necessarily a wrong one. He hadn't recovered, and going back to his old work routine before he had was not helping. It was shoving a reality he didn't quite remember on to him before he'd acclimated to his memory loss, and the recovery of his memory, and for a mind that tortured, it was much easier for him to try to sink back to happier days."

"Isn't he happy with Maddie and Jenny?" McGee asked.

"I'm quite sure he is," Ducky answered logically. "But I'm also sure that back in his young, Marine days, things were much, much easier, and much less filled with incomparable loss. He had to succumb to, and overcome, grief all over again. The pressure of having to be 'okay' for the sake of his present family was no doubt overwhelming and stifling."

McGee rubbed his head, looking upset. He sighed. To put it simply, he missed Gibbs. He wasn't really wary of admitting that – he knew better than to mope about it around Madeleine, or mention it in front of Jenny, and he didn't dislike how Tony ran the team – but it didn't feel right without the growling _El Jefe_ leading them all. He could only imagine how Madeleine must feel.

"He hasn't even called them," McGee said in a hushed voice.

"How do you know that?" Ducky asked neutrally.

McGee hesitated.

"I overheard the Director asking Abby if she could track down the number for Mike Franks again," he confessed. "She was pissed."

Ducky blinked, and sighed heavily.

"I do think there's a lot of anger there," he said quietly. He didn't mention to McGee that once, years and years ago, Jennifer had done the same thing when she'd first sent Madeleine to live with Gibbs – she hadn't called for weeks and weeks, while Gibbs got angrier at her.

"How can he just not call his daughter?" McGee asked.

"Perhaps he is worried about how he will sound," Ducky said heavily. "Perhaps he is worried she's mad at him, and he doesn't know what to say." The medical examiner paused. "I can never quite predict or explain Jethro, Timothy," he said simply, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "If anyone knows him best, it's Jennifer," he added frankly. "I think she knows what she's doing."

McGee smiled a little, his mouth quirking up – that was probably true. Working with them for the past year and some was enough to show him that unequivocally. Gibbs knew what kind of fight he was going to have from the Director seconds after they caught a case, and she knew exactly at what point he was going to acquiesce to her orders. It was fascinating to watch – McGee always secretly wondered what their home life was like. The team never got too much of a peek into that now that Gibbs wasn't a single father.

"She'd like to see you," McGee said wryly, remembering what Madeleine had said suddenly. "You know – she's got a bone to pick with you – she's learned in school that ducks aren't really yellow."

Ducky arched his brows comically and spread his hands out.

"Not at all," he drawled, thickening his accent loftily, "have I ever given her the impression that I'm yellow?"

* * *

Madeleine put her hands on her hips and squinted up at Ziva suspiciously.

"Are you sure I'm not interrupting any super secret agent special awesome work?" she asked sweetly.

Ziva laughed.

"I am not a secret agent," she said calmly, and arched a brow. "You are not interrupting," she assured, and bent forward. She reached out with her thumb and narrowed her eyes good-naturedly. "I see Abby left her mark," she said, smudging off Abby's sparkly black lipstick from Madeleine's cheek.

Madeleine squealed and leapt back.

"Leave it, leave it!" she insisted, smirking. She blew her hair out of her eyes. "Abby said it's good luck if she kisses a Gibbs on the cheek!"

Ziva smiled and nodded in an accommodating way, stepping back. She sat down at the table in the break room and popped open a can of caffeine-free soda for Madeleine, sitting back with a little Styrofoam cup of tea for herself.

"Thanks for the soda," Madeleine said politely.

Ziva inclined her head – it was no problem at all. Jenny had called to the bullpen to say she'd be done with MTAC in an hour, and to send Madeleine up at five – that was when DiNozzo let the team leave. Madeleine had come skipping up from Abby's lap, dusty with baking soda from a volcano experiment, and there had been half an hour to kill until Jenny was free and back in her office – so Ziva had suggested a small treat while McGee and Tony cleaned up the last bits of their efforts on today's case.

"Ziva, are you going back to Israel?" Madeleine piped up suddenly, eyeing her critically.

Ziva arched her brows, slightly taken aback.

"No," she answered simply.

"Ever?" Madeleine prodded.

Ziva paused, and tilted her head.

"It is my home, Madeleine, I may return to visit my family," she allowed – what family she had left, that is.

"But you're not going back for good?"

It was a question Ziva couldn't really answer, but Madeleine was young enough that right now, there was no need to really delve into the complexities, particularly as Ziva simply understood her feelings now enough to be able to say –

"I do not think so," in a neutral but sure tone.

Madeleine looked relieved.

Ziva leaned forward, concerned by the look on the little girl's face.

"What has made you think I am going back to Israel?" she asked. "It is not near a holiday, even – and I do not take vacations."

"They kept saying – "

"Who is _they_?"

"They, Ziva, _they_ … it's just the _they_ they talk about."

Ziva opened her mouth to respond, then looked puzzled, and then cocked her head. Madeleine sighed and lowered her lips to her soda, biting on the edge of the can.

"You know," she whispered, "they, people, the bosses of Daddy and Mommy, they were saying you had to go back, for a while. I heard Daddy being angry."

"How do you know about all that?"

Madeleine looked sage and prim.

"I know everything," she whispered in a singsong voice.

Ziva gave her a look and snorted. She let the hot tea in her cup burn her palm a little and sat back, mulling over her answer. The agency had done a very good job of keeping what had happened recently under wraps – the fact that Iranian intelligence had tried to frame Ziva for espionage and murder so immediately after the terrorist attack that NCIS had been unable, due to political maneuvering, to stop – was not good. It had been suggested that Ziva was in league with the men who had blown up Gibbs and arranged the attack on a U.S. frigate – and if it hadn't all gotten cleared up by him – by Gibbs himself – Ziva might well be on her way to Israel now, sequestered away in shame, branded a traitor like her brother.

It was Gibbs who had saved her – it had almost been Gibbs' last act, before he left for Mexico – to fight for Ziva, and prove she was innocent; she sometimes wondered if it was the stress of that last case that had really cracked him: really made it impossible for him to get it together. She had been yet another person whom he was supposed to know and love as a family member and he hadn't quite gotten that familiarity back yet.

Madeleine moved her foot and nudged Ziva, and the Israeli smiled softly.

"That will not happen," Ziva assured Madeleine. "I am staying here, with the team – with you."

Madeleine put her elbow on the table and propped her cheek up, pursing her lips matter-of-factly. Her eyes glittered and she looked monumentally relieved.

"Daddy told Mommy you could hide in the basement if you had to, for the rest of forever."

Ziva grinned, her heart warmed by the sentiment. She braced herself and smiled – she'd been trying so hard not to engage too much in conversations about Gibbs, for Jenny's sake, because she didn't want to provoke any tears or trauma from Madeleine – but this she had to say.

"It is because of him that I am safe," she said, and Madeleine looked happy, her eyes glowing – she did love her Daddy being the hero, and Ziva guessed it was especially meaningful now that she'd been jolted quite suddenly into realizing her father wasn't perfect.

Ziva knew that was a horrible thing to realize – though Madeleine was lucky her father was just struggling with some very understandable demons; he wasn't a ruthless killer like Eli David, a calculating politician who used his children as pawns and his citizens as fodder for propaganda. Ziva missed the days when her father had been a hero to her and only a hero – but because of her complex relationship and experience with her father, she alone had understood best why Jenny had to do what she had done when she banished Gibbs to Mexico – and Ziva had made it her mission to make the others understand.

"Good," Madeleine said emphatically. "Guess what?" she asked.

"What?" Ziva asked obediently.

"I get to do a presentation in class! We all were supposed to choose something unique about us, and I thought Delia was going to choose something Jewish, but she didn't, she chose her pet hedgehog! So I chose something Jewish," Madeleine said eagerly, "and my teacher said I should do Hanukah but everyone knows Hanukah, they have a _Rugrats_ episode about it! Also they teach it in school because it's politically correct, Mommy said so – and then she rolled her eyes."

Ziva snorted in amusement at the last comment, and she leaned forward, taking a thoughtful sip of her tea. She licked her lips to soothe the slight burn and pursed them, realizing Madeleine wanted her to ask what she had chosen.

"What will your presentation be on?" Ziva queried patiently.

"I wanted to pick something that would be cool because no one already knew about it – well, except Delia, she gave me the idea."

"And?"

"Purim!" Madeleine exclaimed. She took another sip of her soda and cocked an eyebrow. "Only, I forgot I don't know anything about Purim, because I wasn't supposed to bother you about Judaism for a while, and also Daddy doesn't know how to get me Jewish lessons."

Ziva tried not to laugh at the idea of Jewish lessons – and winced a little at the blunt mention of her recent struggle with her faith. Gibbs had subtly – and unbeknownst to him, most likely, restored it – when he told her that her father didn't have to represent who she would be – she realized her father didn't have a monopoly on how her faith was represented, either – but for a while, after Ari's death, and the stunning revelations she'd faced about her father – she had just turned to the shadows for a while, living in a secular haze.

She was sorry Gibbs had noticed that so much he'd discouraged Madeleine from bringing it up, because Madeleine had always held some sort of key to Ziva's heart, soul, and mind. It was Madeleine who had made her feel something other than despair when Tali had died.

Ziva grinned, and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

"You are one lucky goose," she said wryly. "Purim is my favorite holiday."

"It's _duck_, Ziva!" Madeleine giggled, rolling her eyes. "How can you get that one wrong, you work with a Duck!"

"I work with a Duck_y_," Ziva corrected primly. "Only your Aba calls him _Duck_."

"Just remember it rhymes," Madeleine said earnestly. "Lucky duck – and okay, so why is Purim your favorite?"

"It celebrates Hadassah, and Hadassah is my favorite Jewish woman."

Madeleine stared at her blankly a moment – and Ziva was about to translate, as she had forgotten that Madeleine's Torah was in English and she'd only ever read it in English, when it clicked –

"Oh, _Esther_?" Madeleine asked.

Ziva's eyes brightened, impressed. She nodded – yes, Esther; Queen and savior of the Jews of Persia. Madeleine shifted onto her knees and leaned forward, cupping her hands around her soda can. She blinked rapidly a few times.

"Ziva – tell me the story!" she asked.

Ziva's eyes flicked to the clock – there was still some time to spare; she could probably get it out – and these days, she was prone to doing anything for Madeleine; anything for the child who had saved her from grief so many years ago, whose father had taken her in and been a surrogate to her, and whose mother was for so long her only female friend –

Ziva smiled, and nodded, and she quietly began the story of how Esther saved her people, and began the great tradition of Purim – and in the back of her mind, she hoped that by the time Purim came around this year, Gibbs would be back, his head healed, his heart mended, to see Madeleine having made it through and waiting patiently for him, and herself having overcome the demons that threatened her faith.

Ziva knew Jenny was doing the right thing, forcing Gibbs to confront his demons and fight them down – and as difficult as it was to work in the bullpen without him, and hear Madeleine talk about him longingly – it would turn out right in the end –

"Ziva, wait … tell it in Hebrew … "

\- and Ziva was willing to do what she could, in the mean time, to keep Madeleine's faith alive; she thought of Madeleine, demanding DiNozzo tell her if the Mexico situation was permanent, and she had unbreakable resolve to keep that faith alive – in Judaism – and in Gibbs.

* * *

Jennifer Shepard was just checking her watch again, brows furrowed worriedly, when her office door flew open and her eight-year-old daughter skipped in. Madeleine shoved the door hard enough that it hit feebly against the wall, and Jenny smiled a little – maybe one day she'd storm in here with enough anger to abuse the door just like her father always did.

It wasn't that Jenny particularly wanted her daughter to ever be that angry at her – or that inconsiderate of doors and privacy – but these days, every little thing Madeleine did brought Jethro to mind – the good and the bad.

Madeleine darted around the desk and threw herself at Jenny, sprawling in her lap dramatically and pressing her face against her shoulder. She beamed and sighed heavily, clutching her mom's arms.

"Hi, Mommy," she said loudly, her voice muffled in her mother's soft blouse.

Jenny leaned over and kissed the top of Madeleine's head, stroking her hair back and nudging her up. She looked her over in a quick, fond glance and then bent forward to kiss her again, wrinkling her nose.

"Hi, sweetie," she answered gently, taking a deep breath. She took Madeleine's hands and held them together, immediately apologizing. "I am very sorry I couldn't come get you, and I am twice as sorry you had to wait so long – "

"It's okay, I know you're busy," Madeleine said earnestly.

Jenny nodded.

"Yes, I am busy, but I said I would come get you like it was a normal NCIS Monday, and I didn't, and that was not good of me."

Madeleine blinked at her, and shrugged. She really wasn't mad at Mommy for sending Tony, or for making her wait. It wasn't like it happened all the time or anything. Madeleine had lots of friends whose parents handed them off to nannies and never saw them.

"It's not a normal NCIS Monday," Madeleine said, attempting to comfort her mother.

Jenny tried not to visibly flinch – she interpreted Madeleine's attempt at being soothing as a dig about Gibbs being in Mexico, which made things vastly far from normal – and she cleared her throat, trying to move the conversation hurriedly away.

"You weren't in the bullpen alone, were you?" she asked. "Is the team still here?"

"No," Madeleine said, hopping back and sashaying around Jenny's desk, her hand drawn delicately along the edge. "They all left. Ziva stayed a little longer; she was telling me a story. I sat in Daddy's chair while she packed up." Madeleine stopped and cocked a dark eyebrow at Jenny. "Pony tried to _steal_ Daddy's chair."

Jenny swallowed bracingly and curled her hands in, digging her nails into her palms.

"I don't think steal is the right word, Madeleine."

Madeleine seemed to glare at her for a moment, almost meanly, but the look was gone in an instant, and she shrugged.

"Well, I sat there," she said matter-of-factly.

Jenny nodded.

"What story was Ziva telling you?" she asked warily.

"The story of Hadassah," Madeleine answered, her eyes lighting up some. "I am doing a presentation on it in school. Well, on the holiday Purim."

"Ah," Jenny said, nodding. She smiled. "Tali always loved Purim. She liked to dress up as a tropical bird."

Madeleine grinned and leaned on the desk.

"Where's Miss Cynthia?" she asked, changing tune. "I wanted to see her hair. It's so pretty."

"She left early today because her sister had a baby," Jenny answered.

"Aww," Madeleine cooed, crinkling her nose. "Mommy, when do you think Abby and Timmy will have a baby?"

Jenny laughed a little, taken aback.

"I suppose that is up to them," she said, and then leaned forward and reached her hand out, tapping Madeleine's knuckles. "Please don't ask them, hon," she advised. "It's a private question, and you never know if something sad might be keeping them back."

Madeleine nodded.

"And – not _all_ married couples have babies," Jenny added neutrally.

"I _knooooow_," Madeleine drawled, giving her mother a smart look. "You and Daddy aren't _married _and you had _babieeeeeessss_."

Jenny held up one finger.

"One baby," she said, and pointed it at her daughter. "Smarty-pants," she accused – Madeleine probably knew what she had meant, but she decided not to continue the conversation. "Are you ready to go, ahuva?" she asked, starting to gather her things from various drawers – glasses, cell phone charger, a thermos, and a couple of files, for later.

"You don't have to stay a little longer?" Madeleine asked curiously – she was used to Jenny saying she had to stay a little longer – that exact wording was always used. She hadn't noticed it so much when Daddy was here, because he had usually been home – unless there was a very, very big case – but now she noticed it a lot, because Noemi or Abby kept her for that little bit longer.

"I thought if we go home and have dinner now, we have time to watch a movie before bed time," Jenny answered.

Madeleine bounced up and down.

"Can we watch _The Wizard of Oz?_" she asked eagerly. "_Please_ – "

"I would prefer you pick a shorter movie," Jenny said, "but if that's what you really want, we can watch it – if you agree to lights out at bedtime, no books."

"_Yes_, I agree," Madeleine said automatically – and Jenny should have known; the child was mad for the Wizard of Oz – she had been since she was tiny.

Jenny grinned, and Madeleine licked her lips.

"Are we going home or to the townhouse?" she asked rapidly. She went on quickly: "Mommy, please can we go home this week? Oz is sad sleeping in your study, and I want to snuggle with him. I sleep better."

Jenny swallowed, gritting her teeth together – they had spent a disproportionate amount of time at the townhouse lately for a myriad of reasons – reasons Jenny tried not to think about right now. She knew her daughter didn't like it much, because Jenny had strict rules about the dog in that house, and her room wasn't allowed to get as messy – but it had been easier in many ways, as well. The townhouse had given Madeleine something else to be annoyed about and to complain about and dwell on as opposed to pining for her father – and though Jenny wasn't sure giving Madeleine surrogate things to take her emotions out on was exactly helpful, she'd been scrambling to run damage control in some way, the first few days – and then she'd gotten into the habit of the townhouse. And – without Gibbs' presence, her security team far preferred the townhouse.

But Jenny knew Madeleine thought of Gibbs' house as home and the townhouse as a sort of vacation house. She didn't blame her – after all, the house on Laurel street was where she'd really come in to her own while Jenny was still abroad – and she wasn't bothered by it – but for Jenny, staying in that house for even one night without Gibbs was almost torture.

She steeled herself, and put on a composed face; she nodded.

"We can go home," she agreed. She crinkled her nose in a friendly way. "I think Oz will be glad to snuggle up on some pillows with you."

Madeleine beamed, and Jenny got up. She turned off her computer and came around the desk, slipping her arm around Madeleine's small shoulders and steering her gently towards the door.

"I hope you don't mind squishing in the back of the SUV with me," she said wryly.

"Oooh, we're being driven?" Madeleine squealed. "Ooh, Ima, can I talk to Mr. Agent Melvin in a British accent?"

Jenny tilted her head back and left, headed down the catwalk from the Director's office with her daughter in tow.

* * *

Melvin called the head of Jenny's security team to tell him Jenny would be staying at Agent Gibbs' house for the evening. It didn't matter in an immediate sense – Jenny never had guards posted around her at all hours of day – but for certain reasons, they did need to have tabs on her. Other than that, Melvin wasn't a particularly talkative agent – though he bore Madeleine's comical accent affectations with grace.

"Anyway – did you know ducks aren't actually yellow? They're really this awful gross-ish brown colour. The lady ones. The man ones are prettier, to attract mates. Which is weird, because in humans, ladies are the pretty ones and men are just kind of blah."

Jenny laughed.

"I think men can be pretty," she countered wryly.

Madeleine stuck out her tongue and shivered, reacting negatively – something Jenny was completely fine with. She wasn't too keen on Madeleine developing romantic interests at an early age.

"So if the boy ducks are the pretty ones, does that mean they don't have to worry about personalities?" Jenny prompted.

"Hmmm," Madeleine pondered. "We didn't talk about that. It's a good question though, Ima. But humans have to have good personalities," she noted.

"Yes, they do. It's very important that people have good personalities to attract mates."

Madeleine blinked.

"It's also important they remember whom they're mated with," she said shortly.

Jenny's mouth popped open slightly, taken aback by Madeleine's off the cuff, relevant, and slightly cutting comment. She clearly didn't hide her expression well, because Madeleine shrank back a little, looking wary.

"What?" she asked uncertainly, apparently regretting her decision to throw that little dig out. "It _is_."

Thoughts collided in her mind; she didn't know what to say. She wasn't exactly sure how to handle the comment because she didn't know if Madeleine was accusing her or acting out or just saying something because she felt it was true – sometimes, Madeleine said things with absolutely no agenda that just happened to hit hard or open her eyes; she didn't know which situation this was.

Jenny took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

"Yes," she said, nodding carefully. "It is."

Madeleine stared at her, and then turned and looked out the window, falling silent. Jenny leaned back against the seat and watched her critically, on alert for any signs of tears or distress.

Madeleine seemed to be handling this whole ordeal with an odd amount of anger, denial, and nonchalance; for the first week, she had asked repeatedly for Jenny to tell her when Gibbs was going to come home. 'Will Daddy be back by – ' and she'd inserted a date, or a holiday, or an event – my softball game, Saturday night, the school carnival, Abby's birthday – and so on. Jenny had calmly tried to explain that it was an indefinite situation - -except for one night when she'd simply snapped that she didn't know, and Madeleine had started crying. Though she'd felt horrible about that evening, and she'd tried to discuss the issue, Madeleine had gotten up the next day and scaled back her inquiries; the questions had faded to once or twice a week and now – a month later – she had resorted to subtle hints that she was fishing around for an answer or an estimate to when she'd see her father again.

It didn't help that Gibbs hadn't called.

The only reason that was manageable was because Jenny hadn't told Madeleine he'd have any contact with her; they hadn't discussed it. She hadn't known if she was going to allow it, just because the whole point of this was to make him isolate everything he was feeling and really deal with it. However, realistically, she didn't want – and couldn't expect – him to cut himself off from Madeleine, and she couldn't do that to Madeleine.

She was hesitant to contact him first, though, in case there was some reason he was waiting. She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, because she knew how badly she'd handled giving him custody of Madeleine five years ago. But – the instinctive, natural, mother part of her was angry. Madeleine had asked if he would send letters twice, and she hadn't known how to answer.

She was realizing quickly, and gravely, that even though she felt in her heart that this had been the right solution - the only solution – to Gibbs' deteriorating mental state, she hadn't thought it through or planned enough to handle the transition smoothly.

"Madeleine," she began softly, as the car pulled to a stop in traffic and Melvin sighed in mild irritation at the standstill.

"Ima?" Madeleine responded, turning her head and arching her little eyebrows.

"Have you been thinking about what you'd like to do this weekend?" she asked gently. "It's not supposed to rain on Saturday, so horseback riding is doable," she coaxed.

Madeleine licked her lips and scrunched her nose thoughtfully. She clicked her tongue a few times – something she had picked up from Kate Todd, Gibbs said, and that she did when she was nervous or anxious.

"I want to go to Stillwater," she blurted out warily.

Jenny was at a loss for words again. It wasn't necessarily an odd request – Madeleine liked Stillwater; they had been there at Easter every year since Jenny returned, and Jackson frequently came to visit his granddaughter – but it wasn't often Madeleine initiated going: she was a child, she waited to be told when a visit to Pennsylvania was planned.

"Madeleine, we'd have to leave on Friday after school, we'd get there very late," she said diplomatically.

"But Grandpa wouldn't mind," Madeleine said sincerely. "He says we can visit anytime."

"I know," Jenny said, "but I might need to be available for NCIS on Sunday, and you know cell reception isn't always wonderful out there – "

"Well I want to see him," Madeleine interrupted. "I want to ask him things about Kelly."

Jenny clenched her jaw and smoothed her hands over her legs, looking away. Her muscles tightened and she tried to process that, rummaging around in her mind for something to say.

"Why do you want to talk to him about Kelly?" she asked finally.

Madeleine blinked a few times, and she shrugged evasively.

"Madeleine," Jenny prompted a little sharply. "If you're curious, I can tell you about what happened to your father's other little girl."

"I know what _happened_ to her," Madeleine fired back. "I want to know _about_ her."

Frustrated, Jenny bit back a snappy retort – her cheeks flushed. She knew, she knew in her gut, that Madeleine was curious about Kelly all of a sudden because she was confused about Gibbs' inability to keep things straight. In an eight-year-old's mind, remembering who your family was should be easy; Madeleine had no grasp of all the trauma and denial Gibbs had put himself through before he started to deal with Shannon and Kelly's deaths, and she had no idea what a struggle it had been for him to fully, wholly commit to Jenny in word as much as he did in deed.

"I don't know if that's a good idea."

"If you're making Daddy go remember us, _why_ shouldn't I know about her?" Madeleine asked brazenly.

"That isn't what this is about, honey," Jenny began.

"You yelled that it was because he was treating me like I was her, so I want to ask Grandpa why I'm different."

Jenny turned to her sharply, reaching out and taking her shoulder. She caught Madeleine's cheek in her hand and leaned close, her green eyes meeting her daughter's identical ones.

"You are different because you are a different little girl. You are unique, you have a different mother, you have your very own personality, and you like different things. There are no circumstances under which you would be the same as anyone else on this planet, and no one – not even your father, Madeleine, expects you to be a copy or a replacement. I don't want you talking to your Grandfather and trying to make yourself be Kelly or make your father feel better by mimicking her. You are Madeleine. I sent him to Mexico to remember that."

Jenny tapped Madeleine's cheek gently with her finger, squeezing her shoulder affectionately and bracingly.

"You understand me, ahuva? You are _Madeleine_."

Madeleine looked at her, eyes wide, listening. She lifted her chin so Jenny's grip loosened and then she shook her hands off gently, pulling her lips in in a pout and lowering her eyes to her shoes. Jenny watched her glance over at Melvin, and then out the window as Gibbs' street came in to view.

"I know what my name is," she muttered in Hebrew, and lifted her eyes to glare at Jenny. "I want to see Grandpa."

She turned away and curled herself against the window, and Jenny sat back, her shoulders and neck stiff, staring out the front of the car. She felt Melvin's gaze on her in the mirror, and she ignored it – she wanted to kick, scream, and cry, but she had lost the luxury of being beholden to her wilder emotions when she became a mother.

* * *

The entire time she was cooking dinner, Jenny wondered if Madeleine was still going to watch the movie with her, or if she was going to want to sit in her bedroom and read a book. They had arrived at the house, and Madeleine had promptly taken Oz into the backyard to play with him – as she was supposed to – and then come in and gone down into the basement with the dog.

Jenny didn't hear a peep from her until she called her up for dinner, at which time Madeleine came traipsing up the stairs obediently and smiled at her warmly.

"Where's Oz?" Jenny asked warily, glancing towards the laundry room entrance to the basement.

"He fell asleep in a corner," Madeleine answered, taking a seat at the table and picking up a fork. She eyed the plate of simple pasta Alfredo Jenny had whipped up and smiled satisfactorily.

"He won't," Jenny paused, "mess with any…thing…will he?" she didn't know how to phrase what she was asking – dogs wouldn't eat boats, would they?

Madeleine, already busy with her first mouthful, shook her head and chewed a moment before replying.

"The boat is too big now," she said matter-of-factly. "He's not a kitty, so he won't claw at it. He chewed up a hammer once, but he was a little bitty puppy then, and Daddy didn't get mad."

"He didn't?" Jenny snorted. "Oz ate a hammer, and Daddy didn't care?"

"Mom. Oz was like, a really, _really_ cute puppy."

"Ah," Jenny said, smirking. She nodded and sat down to her own plate – it wasn't a fancy meal, but she hadn't planned much for tonight and she was loathe to feed Madeleine some form of take out again – it figured that all her teasing of Jethro's take-out would come back to bite her: with him gone and herself the only parent in the picture again, she was prone to running them to grab Chinese or Mexican when she was pressed for time.

She could almost see Jethro smirking at her every time she did it, listing off every healthy thing he'd cooked Madeleine since she came to live with him. She wished she could see him – she pushed that thought from her mind. No one, after all, was doing better at ignoring his absence than she was, and she was trying to keep it that way – she liked to repeat what he'd told Madeleine in the airport_: like Israel, like Israel, like Israel._

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"There's career day at school, right before we get out," Madeleine said.

Jenny rubbed her forehead.

"Yes, I got that newsletter – I think Tobias forwarded it to me," she murmured, half to herself. "What is your last day, again?"

"June twentieth," Madeleine answered with a gleeful smirk. "We're having a party – we get to paint _faces_."

Jenny smiled.

"But – career day is three days before that, and you can bring someone in to talk," Madeleine went on. She stabbed her plate with her fork and twirled around some pasta. "_Soooo_," she drawled carefully, glancing up. "I was wondering if … you … can do it," she asked.

Jenny sat back, slightly flattered. She had been expecting Madeleine to ask for her father – or at the least, Abby. Madeleine usually refrained from asking Jenny things such as this because she knew the answer was inevitably going to be that work would interfere – and she wasn't resentful about it, she just knew it wouldn't work out. For her to have asked –

"I can talk to my security team about it," Jenny said earnestly. "Your school is a nice place, and I'm sure they would be fine with it. I can try to keep my schedule clear for that day, too."

"Okay," Madeleine said, looking up. She chewed her lip. "Um, but if you can't … it's in like fourteen days I think … or three weeks, something," she stumbled, "maybe by then Daddy will be back? And he can do it?"

Ah – there it was. She had probably asked her mother first to soften the conversation before she brought up her father – and Jenny resisted the urge to groan or snap, because it had been a good ten days since Madeleine had _explicitly_ asked the question.

"Madeleine," she began.

"Mommy, _please –_ "

"Madeleine," she said firmly, narrowing her eyes. "I am not going to make you promises like that."

She couldn't say what she really wanted to say – Madeleine was too young – she couldn't say that there was no way in hell Gibbs would be back that quick, because if he was fucked up enough to be unable to call his daughter for a month, he wasn't going to be miraculously healed in another two weeks. She didn't know how to make Madeleine understand that psychological recovery was not as simple as medical recovery – not that medical recovery was simple by any means – but what Jethro was going through was going to take careful time, and Jenny wanted to make sure he took all that time now so they never had to repeat this.

She was on edge emotionally herself; she was terrified this wasn't going to work – that Gibbs wasn't going to do what he needed to, and she was going to have to preserve herself and her emotional health and leave him. She hadn't felt this scared or uncertain about his feelings or commitment since she was young and inexperienced and in Paris, and it was almost twice as bad this time because she had Madeleine to shield from it.

"I just want to know when he might come home – "

"It isn't an exact science, honey. It's going to take time – "

"But it's _been_ time!"

"And if it takes a little longer, I want you to know that's for the best – "

"It's been a thousand years. I want him back. Now."

"It has been one month, Madeleine Jane, and exaggerating things is not going to make you feel better."

"One month feels that long!" Madeleine burst out, dropping her fork and glaring at Jenny. "I'm not hungry. I want to go to bed."

"You will eat the rest of your dinner."

"_No_."

"Madeleine, you will eat the rest of your dinner, and then you may go to bed. I won't make you stay up and I won't make you socialize if you're feeling upset, but I will not let you starve yourself," Jenny said sharply, getting up and grabbing Madeleine's glass off the table. "You eat the rest of that: now. Stop picking out the tomatoes."

Madeleine opened her mouth to protest, and then let her shoulders fall, screwed up her face miserably, and began to eat. Jenny went into the kitchen quickly under the pretenses of refilling Madeleine's grape juice – and she stopped, and leaned against the fridge, out of sight for a moment, and closed her eyes tightly, trying to hold back tears of frustration and distress.

She didn't want her daughter to hate her for this. She didn't want Madeleine to think she was being cruel and heartless; but Madeleine was also too young to be exposed to all of the very adult issues that had come between her parents since this had all started: and she was too young to understand that she may think it would be fine if she pretended she liked things just like Kelly did to make her father feel better, but it would warp them all in the long run – and therapy was expensive.

Jenny took a deep breath, opened the fridge, and re-filled the grape juice – she wished vehemently that she'd insisted they stay at the townhouse tonight; she wished she'd simply laid down the law and moved them there permanently until Gibbs was better – until he came back.

She grit her teeth and went back into the dining area – to find Madeleine had cleared her plate and disappeared from the table. Jenny sat down at the empty table with a hollow feeling and stared at the glass of juice. She leaned forward, put her head in her hand, and started to eat tiredly – she still had six case files to go over and sign, four budget proposals to authorize or deny, and a couple of field trip or movie showing permission slips to sign for Madeleine.

She rolled her eyes to herself – sarcastically, she thought: she should have just let Gibbs go on like he was, if only so she could have him around to share the burden of being a parent and a person.

She was trying to focus on the sound of her fork hitting the plate rather than her doubts and fears when the dog put his snout in her lap and scared the daylights out of her. She swore loudly, glanced around guiltily, and then let her hand fall to his head, relenting and giving him some much-needed scratching behind the ears. She might not be the biggest fan of the huge, furry, shed-monster, but Madeleine was right – he was a cutie, and he was comforting when she was in need of some silent support.

The person she usually relied on for that was no doubt drenching himself in beer and absorbing sunstroke while he tried to figure out what the hell he'd been kicked out for – Gibbs could be denser than molasses when he wanted to be.

She was lifting her last forkful to her mouth when the phone rang. Out of habit, she reached for the cell phone at her hip – it wasn't that one; it was the landline. She checked her watch – it wasn't too late for polite company to call – so she got up and meandered over to the living room, where she picked up the ancient cordless phone – she swore Gibbs hadn't replaced it since the millennia – and clicked it on.

"Shepard," she answered automatically, wincing at herself – it was a personal phone, she should have just said hello like a well-adjusted human being instead of a federal lunatic with an absent boyfriend.

The line crackled and popped in an ominous way – it sounded dusty, if that were possible, and she cleared her throat.

"Hello?" she asked curtly, already having half-made up her mind to end the call.

She bit into her lip and furrowed her brow in annoyance when she finally got an answer.

"Put Madeleine on, Jen."

His voice was gravelly, uncertain, wary, and tight – and threaded through hundreds of miles and a bad, sandy connection – but she recognized it.

Her heart leapt into her throat and she almost doubled over – she closed her eyes and sat down on the couch, pressing the phone tightly against her ear. She mashed her lips together silently for what seemed like an eternity, and then she drew in a deep breath.

"Jethro?" she asked.

He made her wait a moment, but she took the brief silence as tacit agreement – he said again:

"Put Madeleine on."

She took that for what it was – he clearly didn't want to talk to her: either he couldn't or he wouldn't, and she would deal with that later. It was paramount right now that she let him talk to Madeleine; she knew that innately.

She lifted her mouth away from the phone.

"Madeleine!" she called, loudly and clearly – loud enough that Madeleine would hear her in the basement, or if her bedroom door was closed. "Madeleine, come to the living room!"

She waited a few seconds, and realized she was being innocently ignored. She sighed and changed her tune.

"Madeleine, Daddy is on the phone," she shouted.

It took a total of three seconds for Madeleine to crash into something, slam a door, and come careening into the living room. She threw herself onto the couch, scrambled roughly over Jenny – landing in her lap, and snatched the phone, jamming it against her face.

"_Daddy_!" she wailed into the receiver, excitement and relief and longing characterizing that one simple word.

Jenny steadied her as she balanced half on the arm of the couch, half on her mother's lap – one foot laying awkwardly on the coffee table. The redhead leaned forward to stop one of Gibbs' books – untouched since he left – from falling to the floor – and she tried to shoo Oz away when he came bounding over wagging his tail to see what the fuss was about. He let out a bark, but Madeleine talked right over the noise.

"Daddy, I _miss_ you. I went to NCIS today, and Tony was in your chair, and I _hated_ it. Why did it take you so long to call? Do they have no phones in Mexico? Is it hot? Aba – thank you for saving Ziva – Aba, come home – "

Madeleine's conversation switched gears so many times it was hard for Jenny to keep up; she wondered if Gibbs was having the same problem. As gently as possible she extricated herself from Madeleine and let the little girl curl up on the couch with the phone held tightly and continue talking – and it definitely sounded like Madeleine was doing all the talking.

She sat down in a chair and watched – her eyes never left Madeleine's animated, smiling, thrilled face. She seemed to be soaking up her father's voice like it was oxygen, sustenance itself – and that look made Jenny's heart hurt in a way she never wanted to feel again – though she knew that now, it would be almost constant until he was back with them.

She had known that Madeleine was going to miss her father – but she realized now she was thinking of this separation in terms of how Madeleine had 'missed' Gibbs when she was living in Israel. Then – Madeleine had been fine when Gibbs was absent; she had adjusted well each time to his leaving, and had slipped easily back into familiarity with him as she got older and each time he came to visit. This – now – this was so different, and she could strangle herself for not realizing how traumatically and unequivocally _different_ this would be.

Madeleine had lived with Gibbs, and only Gibbs during some of her most significant formative years – he was the primary caregiver; he had been a solid and a constant for longer – at this point – than Jenny had been; in this situation, Gibbs leaving indefinitely must have been as heartbreaking and gut-wrenching for Madeleine as Madeleine's leaving Israel had been for Jenny.

Realizing that, understanding that – Jenny felt like she couldn't breathe. She stared at Madeleine with out seeing her; her vision blurred, and her chest felt tight and hot – she felt sick, and for the first time, she felt not like she'd made a logical decision for them both, but like she'd ripped something away from her daughter – possibly damaged her.

She felt the overwhelming urge to scream, and swallowed it down – and she decided to let Madeleine talk for as long as her heart desired.

* * *

It shocked her as much as it didn't shock her that, when the conversation was over, Gibbs hung up without speaking to Jenny. While she tried to reason with herself and establish whether she had expected that or not, she acknowledge that it hurt her badly; she was in no state of mind to be strong for Madeleine, and as Madeleine brightly hung up the phone, she selfishly hoped her daughter would want to simply – go to bed.

"He says he can hear the ocean at night, and not just through a shell!" she cried excitedly. "He said – he didn't call me Kelly once, Mommy! He said _Emmy_ and Maddie and even _Emmy_-_Jane_ and he said _Pony _so he even remembered Tony right – that means he can come back really soon, I think," she said.

Jenny noticed she didn't ask, and she was grateful for that.

"He was tired, he said tell you _hi_," she added suddenly.

Jenny tried to smile at Madeleine – she assumed that was a lie, because Madeleine's nose twitched in a suspicious way – but she thought it was unbearably sweet and empathetic for Madeleine to make something like that up, so she nodded, and accepted it.

"I think he can come back by Father's Day," Madeleine said loudly, nodding her head to herself. "Yeah, that would be good. That's soon," she said. "That's before career day, think – Mommy, can we do the movie tomorrow night? I want to go shower, and I'm going to read the Made_line_ book. I can compromise with Daddy," she said rapidly, running over. "Mommy?"

Jenny blinked, meeting the child's eyes – she was staring at her so closely suddenly, that Jenny almost reared back.

"Mommy, are you okay?" Madeleine asked, quieting down a bit.

Jenny braced herself and swallowed, trying to clear her throat.

"I'm just very glad Daddy called you," she managed – and she thought she sounded perfectly normal.

Madeleine eyed her, and then nodded, brightening again – though she wasn't _quite_ as sunny this time.

"Is it okay if I read Made_line_ instead?" she asked again.

Jenny nodded.

"Don't forget to brush your teeth," she added mechanically. "I'll come in and kiss you and make sure your lights are out at eight-thirty."

"Yes ma'am," Madeleine squeaked, bubbling over with excitement – riding the high of talking to her favorite man in the world.

She bounded off, and Jenny pushed her hands through her hair roughly, enough so that it hurt a little bit. She closed her eyes tightly and tightened her hands, digging her fingernails into the skin of her palms – she felt something like terror in her bones; fear that he was down there stewing in resentment towards her, fear that her attempt to make him deal with this right was going to backfire and isolate her from her family – fear that if they separated, Madeleine would increasingly choose him –

It was all just rooted in the fear of losing him, she realized – but wasn't that the point of this? – she had to make him decide if he wanted to be with Jenny the rest of his life, or with some woman who was just holding Shannon's place – and until he had called to speak to Madeleine, and only Madeleine, it hadn't truly, coldly occurred to her that his re-traumatization might be the end of them.

She wasn't ready for that.

* * *

She checked on Madeleine precisely when she said she would, and the little girl was out cold; asleep in the middle of her bed with a lamp on and her book splayed across her stomach. Gently, Jenny set the book on the table, turned off the lamp, and gingerly tucked Madeleine in. She kissed her protectively – letting her kiss linger on Madeleine's temple for longer than usual –and then slipped into the master bedroom to shower and get ready for a few hours of Director work.

Clean and slightly damp from a scalding shower, she crawled into bed and lost the desire to do the case files and budget proposals she needed to – it didn't matter; they could wait until tomorrow. Instead, she pulled the covers around herself and curled up, turning her face into the pillow he usually slept on and inhaling as deeply as possible – sawdust, sweat, and whiskey; the scent was still here – it was everywhere here, and that's why she'd been avoiding it like the plague.

Her sheets at her townhouse didn't smell like him, they smelled like her, and she liked that right now – but Madeleine obviously liked it here – Madeleine, she accepted, was not as adjusted as Jenny had tried to make herself believe.

And why should she be? She was eight years old and, after her father had survived a near fatal explosion, her mother had forced him to leave for another country with instructions for him to get better – indefinite instructions with undefined parameters and no tangible benchmarks. The thing was – she had done this before, on a small scale; when Madeleine was littler and their biggest hurdle was about the three little words that she wanted to hear from him, to believe it when she heard them on his lips – and essentially, this was the same battle, except it was realer: to an extent, yes, he had dealt with Shannon and Kelly when Madeleine was born and as she grew up: but with the grief re-awakened and so fresh – it had to happen again, and this time it had to happen correctly.

It was like it was happening concurrently with his life with Madeleine and Jenny, though; the primary problem was that he'd recovered his memory in such a sharp jolt after he'd lost it that it seemed like the two realities were happening alongside each other, and he was strangling from grief in one and trying to cope with normalcy in the other. It was a headache and a mess and one moment Jenny felt she had absolutely done the right thing – and Ziva and Ducky swore to her she had – and the next she felt guilty and broken and lost, like she had no idea what the hell she was doing.

Madeleine was in the middle of this, young and impressionable and struggling to understand – and it made Jenny miserable, that once again this little girl was facing something beyond her years and outright unfair. She had seen death and she had experienced war zones and hostage situations and the ache of living worlds away from loved ones – and now there was this, and Jenny wondered if there was ever going to come a day when life would just become _normal_ for Madeleine.

She wondered, not for the first time since she'd taken office ahead of Leon Vance, if it was time to look for something else – she loved the job, but it was demanding and aggressive and it meant she and Gibbs were both in vastly dangerous positions – and she wondered if it was time to hand the crown to Vance, where it should have been all along.

She rolled over and wiped her eyes, staring at the ceiling. Smudges of red and black came off on her skin, and she noted she hadn't taken her make-up off before or after the shower –it was running and messy on her face. She'd fix it tomorrow.

She swallowed bitterly – if only she could fix everything else as easily as she could fix her make-up.

In the dark and quiet, she kept hearing his voice; hearing what he'd said the night they'd fought when she told him he had to leave – _You sure I'll come back, Jen?_. Words of desperation, meant to hurt her and scare her she knew – and they did, now more than ever. Part of her was sure he'd come back, because part of her had more faith in him than she could possibly explain: Jethro always came through; Jethro was a savior figure – he was a constant, even when he wasn't – but part of her was insecure, the same part of her that had left him in Paris, and held him at arms' length when Madeleine was a baby – if there was a part of him that knew how to threaten her like that, couldn't there be a part of him that didn't love her enough to really put Shannon and Kelly behind him?

He hadn't spoken to her – after a month, a month of no contact – he had called, and he had barely even _spoken_ to her.

She should be angrier, but the thing that angered her most was how much it simply scared her.

She wanted to be stronger than this - she was going to have to find a way to start monitoring him; she needed to begin communicating with Franks, at least – why hadn't she been doing that all along? – and she needed to be more attentive to Madeleine and more realistic about how this was affecting her, rather than trying to just - be normal.

She wiped at her eyes again – and gasped, startled, when something nudged her foot. She bolted upright – and realized almost immediately it was the dog, though that only gave her a moment of comfort – because if Oz was out of Madeleine's room, then Madeleine –

"Ima?"

Madeleine's whisper was almost too quiet to hear, but Jenny had honed maternal ears, and she picked it up. She narrowed her eyes in the dark and squinted until she saw Madeleine standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

"What's wrong?" Jenny asked shakily – she didn't manage to cloak her voice or hide that she was taken aback.

Madeleine shrugged a little.

"Sick?" Jenny asked. "Bad dream?"

Madeleine leaned on the foot of the bed and opened her mouth, hesitating.

"Isn't Daddy being gone a bad dream?" she asked quietly.

Jenny ran her hand over her lips heavily, blinking in the dark. She sighed, her shoulders falling, and nodded slowly.

"Come here," she whispered, reaching out. "Come on, Maddie, it's okay, come here," she coaxed, as if her daughter was little again.

Madeleine climbed on the bed, dragging her stuffed grey animal with her – Tin Man, the animal was called. Oz followed suit, hopping up on the bed like he owned the place and curling himself into a giant furry ball at Jenny's feet while Madeleine snuggled up closer.

Her mother rarely called her by one of her nicknames, so Madeleine knew it was one of those times when she was being extra sensitive to what was bothering her. Madeleine laid her head down on the pillow and Jenny leaned back, propping herself up and looking down at her.

Madeleine wrinkled her nose.

"It smells like Daddy in here," she said.

Her face crumpled, and she started to cry.

"Mommy," she whimpered, her lips shaking, "Daddy just hung up without talking to you. I don't like that. It's mean. I don't think he can come back soon. I think I was being silly," she sobbed rapidly, her words tumbling out so quickly, and in such confusion, it was almost like she herself was still trying to understand them. "I woke up when you tucked me in and I couldn't stop thinking and he sounded really upset and different and I don't think he's okay, but he wasn't okay here either. I don't think he's okay at all!"

Jenny reached out and pushed her daughter's hair back, tucking it behind her ears.

"You aren't being silly," she said softly, soothingly. "It isn't silly to miss him and want him to come home."

Madeleine covered her mouth and buried her head for a minute, struggling to stop crying so she could talk again.

"But I _know_ he doesn't like Kelly or his other wife better, I _know_ it," she burst out aggressively. "He _doesn't_! Or he wouldn't be a good Dad or a nice boyfriend or … or I don't even know what you are okay…" Madeleine trailed off, and Jenny almost laughed – for the first time in a while.

It was a bright moment in a dark time, Madeleine expressing frustration over Jenny and Gibbs' lack of "married."

"I don't understand why he won't just get better," she cried.

"I know, sweetie," Jenny murmured, leaning down – with Madeleine crying and providing a reason for her to focus on being a mom and only a mom, she was able to pull herself together. "It's so, so hard to understand. You've been trying so hard."

"I want him to come home, though. I _miss_ him," Madeleine cried. "But I want him to be right, like he used to be, so I know he has to stay but … " she stumbled off and rubbed her eyes hard, her mouth hardening in a frustrated line. Her cheeks reddened. "I can't forget about him while he's going to remember us, Ima, I don't _like_ pretending it's all okay – it's not, it's not, _it's not_!" she raged.

Jenny nodded – she bent to kiss Madeleine comfortingly. It hadn't been a good idea to try to force things into "normal minus Jethro" and try to ignore the absence – she _should_ be talking about him more, and not talking was a habit she had picked up from the man in question himself. There was just – it was difficult; there was a fine line in what she could discuss with Madeleine and in what remained too complex or too adult for her to hear.

"Madeleine, "Jenny began quietly, speaking close to her daughter's ear. "Maddie, did Daddy say he loved you when he hung up the phone?" she asked.

Madeleine turned her face up and blinked, sucking in her breath. She nodded, and Jenny felt relieved enough to cry – though she held back.

"Yes," Madeleine said shakily. "He said he loved me, and he said he would write me letters and call more."

That was good, Jenny knew – Gibbs had always been able to tell Madeleine he loved her, and if that was still in tact, then she could see how this could easily be fixed if he just had time to focus on healing and introspection and catharsis.

"That's what I want you to remember, you understand?" Jenny whispered. "He loves you very much. He loves you more than anything in the world."

"But Kelly – "

"He loves her, too, more than anything in another world."

"Mom, what world – "

"You're my little faithful one, Maddie," Jenny said softly, "you know what other world."

Madeleine sucked in her breath and nodded. She closed her eyes tightly and her lips trembled – she wasn't done crying, but she was calming down a little. Jenny may not be religious, or particularly like religion, but Gibbs was spiritual and Madeleine was faithful, so in this case she chose to use that for comfort – and it worked.

Madeleine reached for the necklace at her throat.

"Daddy needs us to be strong," Jenny said.

Suddenly, all the thoughts she'd had about leaving him – and those thoughts had accosted her violently in the weeks after his accident, when things had gotten harder and harder – seemed to evaporate; she was no longer in the realm of uncertainty, of figuring out where she was going to draw the line and what the final straw would be - she realized in that very second that much of Gibbs' problems stemmed from a fear of loss, and if she could find the strength to show him he wasn't going to lose her and Madeleine if her life depended on it, he'd be okay.

"He will realize we aren't going anywhere, and he'll start to engage himself and attach himself, okay?" Jenny said.

She pushed back Madeleine's hair.

"Make sense? Or need me to explain more?"

Madeleine swallowed, and lifted her shoulders. She nodded – she was almost _sure_ she understood what Mommy was saying. It meant Madeleine needed to write letters back to Daddy, basically – and she was a pretty good writer, her teachers told her so.

Jenny watched her thoughtfully, and snuggled closer.

"I'll call your grandfather, Madeleine," she said gently. "I'll ask him to come visit you this weekend," she was about to hug Madeleine close, when she thought of something – "I have an idea," she proposed: "let's – every night, until it's time for Daddy to come home, let's make a nick in the boat."

Madeleine's green eyes got wide.

"Oh, Daddy won't like that."

"No, he won't," agreed Jenny, "but then, when he gets home, he'll need your help to sand it smooth again. You can spend as much time as you want with him. I know how much you love working on the boat."

Madeleine considered the idea, and she reached out and grabbed Jenny's hand and squeezed it. She nodded – she liked it, and maybe one of these days when Daddy sounded better and seemed better, she'd tell him they were doing and it would make him get his butt in gear and work harder to come home.

Jenny hugged Madeleine close, kissed the crown of her head – and remembered that Gibbs had told her when he'd first moved her back to the United States; she'd slept with him for a few nights before she adjusted.

"Madeleine, do you want to sleep in here with me?" she offered quietly.

Madeleine just nodded, and slipped her arms around Jenny's neck. Jenny bowed her head, content to cuddle her daughter up in her arms and try to get her to fall asleep – to feel somewhat better – and while she lay there, wide awake, she reconciled herself to what a process this was going to be – and she hated that it kept turning out like this: Madeleine having to do without one of them.

* * *

_basically - so in Mishpokhe, I adjusted dates and whatnot (like Tali's death and Kate's death and when exactly Jenny came back) and this is the same - I switched Hiatus all the way to 2008 (obviously) and pushed the events of 'Shalom' to immediately after Gibbs' accident. _

_-Alexandra_


	3. Two

_a/n: i think you guys are really going to enjoy this chapter !_

* * *

**July/August 2008 **

On Thursday afternoons, in the muggy afternoon business lull, a lone figure had become a fixture at the bar – Camila Charo was familiar with the solitary, silver-haired man who always sat quietly at the end of the bar, drinking ice cold Coronas – no lime – and staring at a small stack of paper in front of him. He spent more time staring than writing, but by the time he left just before the dinner rush, he always had a letter completed and folded up neatly – ready to be dropped off at the beaten down old post office right before it closed.

He rarely spoke, though he was somehow tacitly a friendly customer, and he was always a very good tip –whether it was a bartender or a new girl or Camila herself who served him. He never ate – unless he was taking some order back to the beach house he lived in on the ocean – and he never cared if the music was too raucous or the people outside the cantina too loud – if lonely women hit on him, he politely shrugged them off – and with his looks and quiet, charming nature – lonely women hit on him a lot.

Camila smiled as she removed her apron and threw it on the bar, reaching in to the cooler beneath it for another beer. His was almost empty, and he only had half a page written.

"On the house," she said in accented English, as she switched out the bottles. She took a lime from the fruit cooler and, since he didn't like them, sucked on it herself, tilting her head at him. "You will be late, ah?" she asked, nodding her head at the paper. "A longer letter this night, mm-hmm?"

She knew him better than most – because she knew Mike Franks very well, and he was Mike Franks' friend. She knew he wasn't very comfortable with small talk – or any conversation, really – but she didn't mind, because she could practice her English with him without fear of sounding silly or miscommunicating. The nice thing about him was that he'd offer her a small correction if she needed it without sounding condescending.

He looked up and took the beer in his hands, holding it up to her in thanks. She held up one finger.

"Une momento," she trilled, and then whipped out a shot glass and a bottle of tequila. She poured a shot, and held it up. "To cheers," she suggested, and he touched the bottle to her shot glass.

She knocked back the shot, reached for another lime, and then glanced at the clock.

"I finish my extra work at five," she said. "I drive you home, if you want," she suggested. "I take Mike his tobacco early, that way."

Leroy Jethro Gibbs smirked tiredly.

"He can go a day without," he said, and Camila laughed. He shook his head. "Nah, Camila, I'll walk back," he declined.

She shrugged as if to say – suit yourself – and took a towel from under the bar, beginning to wipe up the area. It would be a few hours before things got very busy. She chewed on her lip, glancing at him every once in a while, and finally she put a hand on her hip and she looked at him, tilting her chin up.

"Who you write to, Senor?" she asked bravely, her eyes on his bent head, and then on the twitching of his pencil. "It must be important person. You never miss a week," she said, and arched her brow. "A lady?" she queried slyly.

He looked at her for a moment, and smiled, glancing back down. She thought he wasn't going to answer. He rubbed his jaw, put down the pencil, and grabbed the beer, taking a long swig.

"My daughter," he answered finally.

Camila arched her dark brows.

"I not know you have a daughter," she remarked, pursing her lips.

"Didn't," Gibbs said, reading the label of his Corona. "Didn't know," he corrected.

"I _didn't_ know you have a daughter," she said, pleased to know how to get the wording right.

He kept staring at his beer, and he nodded slowly, glancing at her over the top of it. He didn't say anything, just nodded, and she smiled. She stopped what she was doing and leaned on the counter, studying him for a moment.

"You are close to her?" she asked.

Gibbs grit his teeth. He nodded.

Camila gave him a look.

"Then what you doing writing letters to her from my cantina?" she asked. She snapped her towel at his arm playfully.

He snorted, smiling a little. He rubbed his jaw again, and looked down.

"Good question," he said, glancing out the window next to the bar.

Camila watched him and sighed, shaking her head. She went back to wiping the bar down. He had come down here a few months ago looking worse for wear, and looking for Mike Franks – so she had directed him to the house on the Baja beach. It had been about a month before he became a permanent fixture in the bar, though Camila had gotten used to him due to her side job taking groceries and retirement pay to Mike Franks. The letter writing had started one day when Mike Franks had angrily stormed in, shoved Senor Gibbs onto a stool at the bar, dialed a number, and all but glued a phone to his ear. Camila had been too busy to hear what was being said, but according to something Mike later growled, the phone call was long overdue.

Since then, he had come in to write letters, pick up post, and occasionally call – but he rarely used the bar phone now, as Camila heard that there had been a phone installed at Mike Franks house – it rarely worked and Mike Franks often forgot the phone bill, but it was there, and Camila supposed it was there because of Gibbs.

She didn't know why Gibbs was here, or what had happened after Mike Franks had mysteriously and unexpectedly gone _El Norte_, she only knew it had all started with that phone call from a secretary in DC who said it was urgent she speak to Mike Franks.

Camila threw the towel over her shoulder and turned to begin bagging up trash and tying it off for a bus boy to take out back. She glanced at Gibbs from time to time to see him in one of his moments – the moments where he was doing more staring than writing. She cleared her throat softly.

"What is her name, your daughter?" she asked carefully.

Gibbs looked at her and blinked hazily a few times. He cleared his own throat, and opened his mouth.

"Madeleine," he answered gruffly.

"_Magdalena_," repeated Camila, giving him the Spanish version. She pronounced it beautifully, and smiled at him. "What a beautiful name. I think she must have your eyes," she remarked conversationally.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes and shook his head slightly – he thought about it for a moment, because at first he was about to immediately say that she didn't, she had her mother's eyes – and then he made himself stop for a minute, because he was testing his memory – and with relief, he realized his first instinct was right; Madeleine didn't have his eyes.

"Nah," he corrected. "She has her mother's."

Kelly had had his eyes, though. Everyone always used to mention it – that she looked just like him, down to the blue eyes. But Madeleine looked more like Jenny, most of the time – except for her nose.

Camila smiled gently, and nodded. She turned, and was about to go back to work when Gibbs cleared his throat.

"There a Spanish translation for _Kelly_?" he asked.

Camila thought a moment, and then shook her head. No, there wasn't – not really. It would just be pronounced with a different accent; there was no Latinized version of it.

"I think it is an Irish name," Camila said.

That made sense, Gibbs figured. She'd been named after Shannon's mother's maiden name, and Shannon's family had Irish heritage. He looked back down at the letter he was writing, and considered telling Camila about Kelly. It was something he had decided to try – not denying Kelly this time around, but instead talking about her; mentioning her – like she was a real little girl who he had lost, not some secret nightmare he couldn't shake.

It might help. He thought he might ask Jen if she thought it would help, but he still hadn't been able to bring himself to talk to Jen. The times when he had the opportunity – he just envisioned her standing at the airport, staring at him, waiting to hear the words he couldn't say – again – and he felt guilty, and ashamed, and he said goodbye to Madeleine and hung up, instead.

He didn't have an excuse for himself; he knew it meant he wasn't close to being ready to come home. Each time he hung up the phone, Mike asked if he'd spoken to that lady director yet, and when he didn't answer, he got slapped in the back of the head.

Mike didn't _get_ it.

Camila tapped him on the hand, and smiled at him, a large, warm smile.

"I bring you some Mexican chocolate from my abuela," she said emphatically. "You send it to Magdalena. She love it," she said.

Gibbs smiled at her and nodded – accepting the gift. He looked down at his half-written letter, and tried to think of more things to say – it was so hard to fill pages when he had nothing to tell, when he wasn't doing anything down here but working with his hands and burning in the sun and listening to his thoughts. It frustrated him that he'd forgotten how to keep in touch with a child – when it was something he'd done for so much of her young life.

* * *

As she got into the car on a Thursday afternoon, she took a moment to contemplate how strange it was to be driving herself – on a weekday. She did plenty of her own driving on the weekends, but during the week she was almost strictly driven by one of the security team. She had taken a sick day from NCIS today – Leon Vance was in town, and she'd left him in charge – and she was on her own, something that was allowed primarily because no one really knew she was off the clock. It was something that was being kept on the down low.

She started the truck – yes, she was driving Gibbs' truck; she hadn't had her own car since before she left for Europe with him years ago, and without access to her black SUVs and with too short notice to ask DiNozzo for his, she resorted to the old Ford. She looked more than comical getting into it in complete business attire, but it was inconspicuous in a strange way, and she knew how to drive it better than she knew Tony's fancy Maverick vehicle.

She was just leaving a meeting she'd had with Tom Morrow, former director of NCIS now working with Homeland Security, the deputy director of the NSA, and the head human resources office of the NSA. It was a preliminary meeting to asses her abilities and talents, and to discuss her seriousness about leaving NCIS – something that until recently, she'd never thought she'd consider doing.

Things had changed very much since she'd first joined the agency – and things had changed even more drastically since she'd taken the position of Director. Her time was stretched thin enough as a mother and an agency director when Gibbs was with her, but with him gone, her job as Madeleine's mother was suffering – and though Madeleine didn't seem to mind or say anything, Jenny knew it was unfair to her and she knew it was time to make a sacrifice and a change. If she was going to make Gibbs leave and work on himself so he could be a better parent, she had to do the same when it came to the situation she was putting herself in at work and at home.

She had begun to consider the idea when Tom Morrow had called her and told her there were positions opening up in Homeland Security for more limited hours without much of a pay cut – which was good, because she couldn't take a pay cut right now: Gibbs' unused leave time had run out, and he was no longer being paid for his absence: hers was the only paycheck. Those positions had to be claimed almost immediately though, and it was something she wouldn't do without careful thought. That had put into motion her negotiations with other agencies with Morrow as a middleman – he knew her well, and he was able to pull strings for her in several areas.

She knew Vance's family was able to move now, as his son's medical issues were dealt with. She knew before she left – if she left – she'd have to make sure Ziva's position would be secure, whether she remain a liaison or be expedited into agent status with some citizenship strings pulled. She knew she had to keep money in mind, and she had to discuss it with Gibbs at least in some manner – so the final decision would have to wait until he decided he was man enough to talk to her.

As it stood now, NSA was interested in offering her a position that would make it much easier for her to be home for Madeleine at a decent hour and on weekends, and wouldn't hurt her too much in the financial department. Miraculously, they were able to offer her medical benefits that included dental for Madeleine – which was shocking, because NCIS didn't offer that, and good, because Madeleine was clearly going to need braces. She was almost positive she could negotiate a higher salary out of them based on her experience and past education – in which case she'd end up with a safer job that gave her more time at home and about the same relative income as Gibbs, and everything would be okay.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead, tucking strands of hair behind her ears and adjusting the wobbly mirror on the truck. When she was sure it would stay for at least the drive to the elementary school, she fired up the engine and drove out of the federal parking garage – there was still half a day left to kill, and while at first she'd been completely baffled as to what to do with so much free time, she'd figured out exactly how to spend it.

She was going to pick Madeleine up early from ice skating camp and take her to get her nails done. In most cases, Jenny thought such a thing was a silly treat to spend money on for an eight-year-old – and she'd made that very clear to Abby several times – but Madeleine had been behaving so well lately that a small treat was in order – and she deserved it precisely because she had been behaving well out of kindness and not because she thought she was going to get something out of it.

As she drove out to Alexandria, she came up with a few innocuous excuses for Madeline's counselors – parents weren't really supposed to pick up the kids early unless it was an emergency – and thought about how excited Madeleine would be. She didn't seem to be enjoying ice skating camp this year, though she usually did – if it were softball camp, however, Madeleine would throw a _fit_ rather than leave early.

Things were better lately – not perfect, naturally – but better. Madeleine had accepted the current status quo as unchangeable until her father showed he was ready, and she stoically lived for his weekly letters and Friday evening phone calls. In fact, phone calls weren't just once weekly anymore – Gibbs had started calling on Mondays, too – Madeleine said it was so he could start the week with her and end the week with her. Jenny smiled and said that was good, but she wasn't convinced he was that much better – as he still wasn't talking to her.

Ducky said it was residual guilt and anger he was feeling concerning her, and she accepted that – but an effort would be nice. His refusal – or inability – to communicate with her was only prolonging their separation. She was, however, not letting it shake her resolve; what she had told Madeleine months ago was right: they had to show him they weren't going anywhere, and as long as he was trying – at the very least with Madeleine – Jenny was okay with doing that.

Jenny parked at the sporting complex the camp was being run in and walked up to the front desk, catching the attention of a young guy with a volunteer sticker.

"Hi," she began, "I need to pick up Madeleine Gibbs. She has a … dentist appointment."

The guy nodded and pushed a clipboard at her.

"Sign her out, please," he requested. "And can I see some I.D.?"

Pleased these people were making sure kids were going home with the right people, Jenny pulled out her wallet with no protest and showed both her driver's license and her federal identification. The guy opened a drawer in a file, glanced at the accepted names on the list, and nodded. It was times like these that Jenny vaguely wished she had the same last name as Madeleine – there'd be no double-checking of the emergency contacts, then. Although this summer it wouldn't matter, because the only people on her lists for camp were Jennifer Shepard, Ziva David, and Tony DiNozzo.

"I'll go get Maddie," the guy said politely, and disappeared from the check in desk.

Jenny signed her name neatly and stepped back, turning to eye some of the trophies displayed in the sports complex's cabinets. The place hosted an award-winning tumbling team and some very highly achieved ice skating performers – but Madeleine was wishy-washy on ice-skating; sometimes she wanted to do it, sometimes she didn't – she had done it for the last two summers, but Jenny was getting the feeling she wasn't into it this summer.

"Mom!" Madeleine whined, the moment she came around the corner and saw her. "Beau says I have to go to the _dentist_ – _why_ didn't you _tell_ me this morning?" she demanded, annoyed. "I don't want to be tortured."

"Don't be so dramatic," Jenny retorted, rolling her eyes. She took the skates in Madeleine's hands from her and slung them over her wrist, gesturing for Madeleine to hand over her bag as well. "It will be over in no time," she added.

Madeleine scuffed her feet, dragging them unhappily, and waved goodbye to the guy who'd helped Jenny sign her out. He snorted and waved back, shaking his head in amusement.

When they got to the truck, Jenny thrust the bag and the skates into the small area behind the passenger seat and sighed, stopping with her hand on the car door.

"I am going to let you sit up front," she began calmly, "but just this once, okay? Because I don't want to squish you in the back in one of those tiny seats."

"I can ride in the back like Oz," Madeleine said wryly.

"No, you absolutely may not," Jenny retorted, opening the car door. "And your father shouldn't let Oz do that. He could jump out and get hurt."

"_Psh_," Madeleine snorted. "Oz isn't stupid."

She got in and buckled her seatbelt under Jenny's supervision. Jenny checked to make sure there was an airbag in the truck, and then walked around and climbed in, starting it up.

"But _Mom_ how come you didn't say I had a dentist – "

"I'm not taking you to the dentist," Jenny interrupted calmly. "I got out of a meeting earlier than I thought, and I figured you might want to go have some girl time with me."

Madeleine's face lit up like a firework and she bounced excitedly in her seat. She kicked her feet excitedly and grinned, obviously pleased.

"Good, my ankles _hurt_," she said emphatically. "What are we going to do?" she asked happily.

"I was thinking we could get our nails done," Jenny suggested, "and do some back-to-school shopping a little early, so we get first pick of the cute clothes."

"School doesn't start for a whole _month_," Madeleine giggled.

"Mmm-hmm, I know," Jenny said calmly. "But there's much more options now than there will be when everyone is shopping."

Madeleine cocked her head and nodded quickly, agreeing whole-heartedly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna get some Sperry's. Emily says they're _so_ cool. But can we not get our nails done? I don't want anything icky on mine, then I feel like I have to be ladylike _all_ the time."

Jenny laughed.

"What would you rather do instead?"

"Can we go to the batting cages?" Madeleine cried hopefully.

Jenny considered it. She chewed on the inside of her lip – that was really Gibbs' department, though Tony and Jackson had done their fair share of taking Madeleine to the cages while he was gone. She wasn't sure she wanted to start taking over things that had been a tradition of Madeleine and Gibbs'. So – she decided to point that out.

"Well, I think the batting cages are you and Daddy's thing," she said calmly. They were much more open about mentioning Daddy these days – more than they were at first, when Jenny kept trying to avoid the subject. "I don't mind taking you, if you're okay with me being there."

Madeleine shrugged.

"You didn't care if Pony or Grandpa took me."

Jenny paused.

"I guess I was thinking they're similar male figures."

"That's kind of stupid," Madeleine pointed out.

Jenny frowned.

"You're right," she conceded – stupid, and pretty sexist of her, too. "Batting cages it is, then. You have to show me how to swing though – I'm awful."

"You can't be that bad!" Madeleine giggled.

"No, I really am awful – ask your father when he calls. I'm an embarrassment – but hey, I've got a really good pitching arm."

Madeleine beamed.

"You can show me that when we get home – Mom, I don't want to do ice skating anymore," she said, switching gears suddenly. "It hurts my ankles too much, and I don't care about it."

Jenny, having suspected as much, nodded and considered it for a moment.

"Are you just frustrated that you're sore? Or are you really not happy?" she asked.

"Eh," Madeleine mumbled. "I like it, but I don't _love_ it. I always wish I were at softball camp instead. And I want to try playing soccer, like Emily," she said rapidly. "She asks me to help her when I play at her house, and she says I'm really good at stopping her goals. Actually, she gets mad sometimes," Madeleine laughed. "Mrs. Diane always yells at her for yelling at me, though."

Jenny nodded, keeping her mouth shut on that one. She chewed on her lip a moment, thinking about what Madeleine had said, and she shrugged.

"If you're really not enjoying it, I'm not going to make you do it," she said.

"I didn't want you to think I'm a quitter," Madeleine said warily. "Because Daddy said quitting is never the answer." Madeleine paused.

"He's right; quitting something because it's difficult or you're giving up is wrong, but quitting something that is truly not making you happy is okay, as long as you aren't letting anyone down," Jenny answered. "If you want to quit ice skating, it will make you happier, and no one will be disappointed in you since it isn't a team sport. It's not like it's the Olympics, Maddie."

"That's the dumb thing," Madeleine said, rolling her eyes. "Coach said now is when we have to decide if we're Olympians or _slackers_."

Jenny glanced over at her, narrowing her eyes.

"She said that to you?" she demanded.

"_Yes_," Madeleine said, annoyed. "I was like – um, I'm just trying to have _fun_."

"Of course you are. That's ridiculous; it's third to fifth grade camp – forcing you to be Olympians is insane," Jenny muttered. "I am perfectly fine with you quitting – you don't even have to go back to camp the rest of this week if you don't want to. It just means you have to come to NCIS with me."

Madeleine gave her a look, and Jenny grinned – she had known that wasn't going to be a huge problem.

Madeleine grinned primly, and nodded, excited at the change the week had taken. She blew air out of her mouth and rubbed her nose, tilting her head.

"You know what Tony said once?" she asked.

"Do I want to know?" Jenny countered.

"He said spitters are quitters. What's that mean?"

Jenny nearly wrecked the truck, and turned sharply to glare at Madeleine, taken aback. Madeleine just stared at her innocently, waiting for an answer. That look indicated Madeleine had truly no idea what she was asking, or what Tony had been talking about.

"Who was Tony talking to?" she asked delicately – she would kill him if he had seriously said something like that directly to Madeleine.

Madeleine blinked thoughtfully.

"Ziva," she said finally.

Jenny glared darkly through the front windshield – so she'd have to kill both of them, then: Ziva and Tony.

"Is it a bad thing?" Madeleine asked.

"It isn't bad," Jenny said neutrally. "It isn't relevant to anything in the realm of your experience yet."

Madeleine gave her a funny look.

"Okay," she accepted. "It doesn't matter anyway, I'm quitting ice skating and I don't think I have to spit anything out to do that."

Jenny felt like slamming her head on the steering wheel.

* * *

Mike Franks glared at the roof of his house. Periodically, a hammer slammed into the wood and some dust and sand fell into his kitchen like it owned the place. The minute it settled, the hammer would slam again – and so on. It was just fine and dandy that Probie had decided to get up at the ass crack of dawn and start repairing the roof – Franks just hoped Gibbs was planning on doing some damn sweeping when he was done.

He had originally thought this whole babysitting arrangement was going to be more temporary, but here it was – late July, and Probie was still bumming around his house like they were in a modern day version of The Odd Couple. On one hand, Franks wished he'd get his ass in gear and head on back to the States; on the other, he knew Gibbs needed a little more time in the boiling sun to really get things squared away.

That's what he kept telling that lady Director when he called her from the cantina. He was doing his part and filling Gibbs' woman in on how Probie was coping and acting while he was down here – since Probie was being a damn fool and wouldn't do it himself – and they were doing a pretty good job of gauging to what extent Gibbs was doing better.

Jenny filled Franks in on everything that had been going wrong while he was recovering in Virginia, and Franks filled her on the developments: Gibbs hadn't confused his daughter's names once in the past month. He'd specifically differentiated between Kelly and Madeleine – Franks had even heard him do so to Camila once or twice – and he'd unequivocally remembered that he had been away for both births, but under difference circumstances. Franks new it was a relief for the lady to hear – but they both also knew that the ability to recite facts was vastly different from an emotional capability to move on.

Franks lit a cigarette and walked out on to the porch.

Probie was gettin' there, he sure as hell was gettin' there. The most important indication of that bein' that when he woke up from his nightmares, he was usually asking for the other two – the dead two – but two days ago he'd woken himself – and Mike – up yellin' for Jenny. Mike hadn't told the lady Director that, yet – but that's because he had a different plan in mind.

"Hey!" Mike shouted, blowing out cigarette smoke, coughing, and then waiting for an answer.

Gibbs grunted, and Mike prowled out onto the sand, looking up at him.

"You gonna sweep up this shit in here when you're done?" he demanded.

Gibbs snorted.

"You're startin' to sound like my wife," he retorted.

"You ain't got a wife, Probie," Franks growled.

Gibbs' head appeared over the edge of the roof and he wiped his brow, a hammer resting against his shoulder.

"Got a couple I got rid of for soundin' like you," he retorted.

"You know you ain't got a wife right now, don't ya?" Franks prodded.

Gibbs gave him a look swung down off the roof, whipping his hat off his head. He shoved the hammer into his back pocket and took a bandanna from his neck, rubbing it over his forehead.

"Yeah," he muttered, reaching for an abandoned beer he'd left on the railing of the porch. "I got it," he added testily. "'M not married to Jen. Quit testin' me," he growled.

"Why didn't you ever marry 'er?" Franks asked curiously. "She too much of a bitch?"

Gibbs gave him a look.

"Mike," he said curtly. "Don't."

Franks held up his hands and grinned, cigarette wobbling between his lips.

"Why, then?"

Gibbs shrugged. His brows furrowed, and he glanced over the ocean, thinking about it. He looked back at Mike.

"She said no," he recalled quickly, pulling the memory up easily for once and then nodding firmly. "Asked 'er – while back, when Emmy was little. Shot me down."

Franks laughed, a snarling, hoarse thing, and shook his head.

"Smart woman," he teased, and Gibbs rolled his eyes.

Franks gave him a look out of the corner of his eye and took his cigarette in hand, gritting his teeth.

"Damn good thing you didn't marry 'er, eh?" he provoked. "She's shit at the whole – in sickness and in health bit, ain't' she?"

Gibbs finished the warm beer he was drinking with a pained look and gave Franks a moody scowl, shaking his head. He looked about to get on the rail and climb back on the roof, but then he stopped, and he glared at his former mentor.

"She did what she had to," he said curtly. "She did this for Emmy, not for herself."

Franks eyed him a moment, and then grinned – smirked like he'd made some sort of important play in his game, and shrugged. He put out his cigarette and kicked some ash off the porch into the sand.

"Then how come you ain't speakin' to her?" he asked pointedly – and he left Gibbs standing there, forcing him to think about that.

* * *

Tony DiNozzo sat on the couch in Gibbs' living room with an award-winning outraged _pout_ on his face. He narrowed his eyes as Abby came bouncing back into the room and grit his teeth.

"I can't believe she's having me babysat while I babysit," he growled.

"Well, Maddie only wanted you to watch her so she could keep working on her softball, and Jenny is still pissed that you said something dirty in front of her," Abby sang.

"She didn't even _know_ what it meant!" cried Tony. He thrust out his hand. "Like you're not a bad influence - you have a shirt with _blood and guts_ written on it!"

"They're just words that name a band; I'm not wearing actual blood and guts!" Abby protested good-naturedly. "Do you want some hot chocolate, Tony? I'm making some for Maddie."

"What the hell? It's July."

"Her favorite treat is hot chocolate poured over ice cream."

"But it's _July_."

"Tony – she's eight, what exactly do you think you're going to convince her of?"

Tony shrugged and got up. He walked into the kitchen and decided he'd grudgingly help Abby with the pre-bedtime snack. He usually came over and watched Madeleine for a stretch of time on Wednesdays – that was the day Jenny chose to work at least fourteen hours at NCIS so she'd be able to take early Fridays – if there were no emergencies – and be completely off call on Saturdays. During the brief time when Madeleine had still been in school and Gibbs had been gone, it had been much easier; she'd usually gone home with a friend and been picked up by DiNozzo on his way home. Then there had been a stretch of time during the summer when she was with whoever could possibly take her – or at NCIS, if the cases were slow – until DiNozzo got off the clock. Currently, she was participating in the end of summer softball camp through the Parks Department – so since that lasted until six, DiNozzo picked her up from there and took her back to Gibbs' house.

Except now all of a sudden Abby was crashing the party, because Madeleine had opened her little mouth and repeated a naughty thing Tony had said to Ziva when he didn't think Maddie was listening.

"Where is she?" Tony asked, peering into some mugs. They were all suspiciously clean – Jenny kept Gibbs' house clean in a way that almost made Tony uncomfortable.

"She's in the shower. I checked on her to make sure she hadn't slipped, but Gibbs put little sticky frogs on the floor so it's not slippery."

Tony snorted loudly, imagining Gibbs gluing adorable frogs to a bathroom floor.

"Is this permanent?" Tony whined, gesturing between them. "I'm supposed to watch her again Friday; are you gonna be here then, too?"

Abby shook her head.

"No, Timmy and I have married date night on Friday," she retorted. "You're taking Maddie to Ziva's house, but Ziva doesn't leave NCIS until seven on Fridays, because she works with Mossad."

DiNozzo glared violently at Abby.

"I don't want to hang out at Ziva's apartment alone."

"You won't be alone. You'll be with Maddie."

"What if she touches a knife?"

"Oh, Christ," Abby said, rolling her eyes. "Ziva has had child locks on all of her weapons since you started being invited to her Shabbat dinners."

"Me?" squawked Tony, offended.

"You can't be trusted with Persian knives, Tony."

He started to protest, but Abby gave him a look and the protest died – yeah, she was probably right. He didn't need to be messing around with Ziva's cool ninja weapons.

"Isn't Friday the day Gibbs calls Maddie?" Tony asked, pushing some mugs into the microwave when Abby handed them to him. "How will he know to call Ziva instead of here?"

"I think Jenny is going to give Maddie her cell phone, because Maddie told me he calls the cell if he doesn't get an answer at either house," Abby explained. "She won't need the blackberry if she's at the office."

Abby leaned against the counter, waiting for the microwave to do its work, and she licked her lips.

"She's been working late a lot the past few weeks," she ventured warily.

Tony shrugged.

"She has to leave NCIS in pristine condition or it's going to reflect badly on her," he grunted. He gave Abby a slightly sour look. "Then, they'll use it to claim they can't put women in charge. Ziva told me."

Abby cocked an eyebrow, but didn't remark on his adherence to Ziva's wisdoms. She licked her lips again and leaned forward, her hands clinging to the counter behind her.

"Is she really going to leave?" Abby asked.

DiNozzo hesitated. He worked more closely with Jenny than the rest of the team, since he had Gibbs' position – though he by no means had as connected a relationship with her as Gibbs had. He didn't butt heads as often, and he didn't have as much of a problem as Gibbs did deferring to her authority when she really put her foot down – and though she hadn't discussed this issue with any of them – except Ducky – he'd heard his fair share of rumors, and one of them had come directly – inadvertently – from Tobias Fornell.

"She wants to be more available for Maddie," Tony said in a low voice. He shrugged. "It's a valid reason to leave."

"I know," Abby said in a hushed voice, "but I like her. I like working with a female director."

"You got to admit she's a little _too_ political for the job," Tony said skeptically.

Abby gave him a look and grit her teeth.

"No," she said, "_Actually_, she's too political for an NSA position, because they're going to want her to think only about American security interests. NCIS needs budget politics, public relations politics – et cetera. You're just repeating what Gibbs complains about."

Tony snorted – Abby was probably right. He liked Jenny, too, but he'd liked Morrow as Director more. Morrow had more of a tendency to have the agents' backs wholeheartedly, while Jenny was often concerned with relationships with other government agencies.

"You think she'll tell us first?" Tony asked.

"I don't think it's our business," Abby admitted. "It's her life, her daughter." She sighed. "I want Gibbs to come back," she murmured. "It all feels totally wrong without him here."

Tony nodded, his jaw tightening.

"Yeah," he said dryly. "Madeleine's ninth birthday is in ten days."

Abby's face puckered, and she whirled to get the hot water when the microwave chimed. She went about mixing hot chocolate into the steamy, boiling liquid, and shook her head.

"Madeleine is doing okay, though," she said softly. "It's a lot better than it was at first."

Tony nodded – it could be worse. The routine without Gibbs – it had all become sort of normal, now, though there was an undercurrent of unsettled anxiety, like they were all waiting for the moment he'd walk back in and things would go back to _normal_ normal. The team had adjusted more quickly than Madeleine had, but now Madeleine had accepted what was going on, and acclimated herself to it – she didn't ever ask when Gibbs was coming home anymore, though she talked about him easily. Jenny herself only ever talked to Ducky or Ziva about her personal life, and those two were tight-lipped – but DiNozzo was content to be there for his goddaughter.

"You think he'll be back by September?" Abby asked quietly.

Tony started scooping ice cream into a bowl and shrugged.

"Don't know," he grunted. "Why's that matter?"

"Her first day back to school," Abby said, frowning sympathetically. "Gibbs has _never_ missed a first day of school."

DiNozzo paused, staring into the ice cream carton, and frowned – Abby was right, he hadn't – but something in his gut told him Gibbs wasn't going to be back for the first day of third grade.

* * *

Gibbs sat on the top step of the porch in the dimming sunlight, only half-focused on the small wooden box he was painting. Most of his attention was being given to Madeleine; he had the phone held between his shoulder and his ear, and he kept smoothing wood stain over the box he'd built to send for her birthday.

"And where is Mommy?" he asked, after listening to a long, drawn out story about how she and Ziva and Tony had pretended the floor was lava and Tony had ended up with a bloody nose and was terrified Mommy was going to be mad at him again.

"She's at work," his daughter answered primly. "She says she's getting her ducks in a row," Madeleine cooed, mimicking her mother's way of talking. "She works so much, but I never noticed it before you went to Mexico. But she said she worked a lot in Israel when I was a baby, I just got to go with her more because I slept."

Gibbs smirked and nodded.

"Ziva can tell you about that," he noted. He'd heard stories of Madeleine suddenly waking up during surveillance missions and scaring the daylights out of a focused Ziva David.

"I hit a homerun in softball today," Madeleine said excitedly. "I was hitting really badly, because the sun was getting in my eyes, and so I marched up for my last hit, and I said to myself – I want to hit a homerun for Daddy, and I hit one!" she giggled. "I was hoping it flew all the way to Mexico."

"I'd catch it and throw it right back," Gibbs promised. He made a mental note to buy a baseball, dirty it up, sign it, and mail it in the box he was making – he had a bunch of little things to send her for her birthday, things that he knew would be perfect for her, tailored to her interests – he hoped Jenny would see it and realize he was getting much, much better – he knew his daughter; he knew who she was, and what she liked.

"How's Mr. Franks?" Madeleine asked.

"Grumpy," Gibbs answered promptly. "He wants me to build him a hot tub," he said, exaggerating a bit – Franks had joked about it, but he wasn't serious. Mike Franks needed a hot tub like a fish needed a bicycle, but Gibbs was working on repairing his fishing boat for him.

"Ooh, I want to get in a hot tub!" Madeleine shrieked.

"You're too young," Gibbs said sternly.

"How can I be too young for hot water, silly?" she demanded smartly.

"'Cause, it's not good for you," he retorted. "I saw it on a sign once. No children under twelve."

"What sign? Where?" she continued – just like her mother; stubborn, refusing to accept what she was told.

"It was a sign at a hotel in North Carolina," he said, thinking a moment. "Kelly wanted to go in with her mom," he added.

He winced, but he found the words weren't as hard as usual. It wasn't so hard to talk to Madeleine – maybe that was because he knew that children didn't analyze things the way adults did; Madeleine would probably never think he was wishing she was Kelly – and he wasn't – but he knew from experience it was a more difficult subject with his wives – and thus, with Jenny.

"Well I guess if you say so," Madeleine conceded. "You left your Kelly dog tag here. I'm going to mail it," Madeleine said matter-of-factly. "Mommy found it in a drawer in the basement and hung it up on the boat – oh, _Daddy_!" Madeleine cried suddenly.

"What, Emmy?" he asked earnestly, hoping nothing bad had happened.

"Grandpa showed me the first boat you _ever_ built!" she told him excitedly. "It was so little, and it was named Ann. He said you named it after your Mommy! But I didn't understand, because Ima said I was named after your Mom."

"Her middle name was Jane," Gibbs said gruffly, pausing. He set the box aside and held the phone, straightening up. "A little boat?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm," Madeleine said. "It had tiny sails and everything. Grandpa said she loved it, but you put it in a box after she," Madeleine stopped. "Well Grandpa said she died."

Gibbs nodded, and closed his eyes tightly – he remembered the boat in a sudden rush, and it made him dizzy - -but he also remembered, quite abruptly and a little too loudly – what his mother had said about it; why it had been named _Ann_.

"Daddy, I'm sorry I brought it up," Madeleine said.

"It's okay," he answered, realizing he'd been quiet too long. "It happened a long time ago, Emmy," he informed her honestly.

Madeleine hummed something, and then she sighed.

"I'm scared Mommy is going to die," she said.

"_What_?" he heard someone say in the background. _"Ziva, who the hell is she talking to? Maddie –"_

"I'm on the phone with Daddy, Pony, shut up!"

"_Don't tell me to shut up, young lady!" _

"_Madeleine, do not use the words 'shut-up' to adults."_

Gibbs then heard Ziva snap something at DiNozzo that sounded suspiciously like shut-up. Gibbs tried to ignore how pathetic DiNozzo had sounded when he tried to discipline Maddie – he almost hoped Tony never had kids, if that was as forceful as he was going to be – and focused on what Madeleine had said, because she seemed to be ignoring what her babysitters were quibbling about and waiting for Gibbs to say something.

"Why are you worrying about that, Emmy?" he asked quietly. "Did something happen that scared you?"

"I don't think so," Madeleine answered. "Her job is just scary. Because men are protecting her all the time," she explained. "I think something happened the other day, but no one told me. I was just at the Hoover building a _long_ time."

"You were with Tobias?"

"I was with Mrs. Diane," Madeleine corrected. "But she took me to Mr. Tobias after she got a phone call. And she said everything was fine. But she was _mad_."

Gibbs grit his teeth, trying to sort out what he was hearing. It did sound like something had gone wrong – because no one would have had Madeleine taken to the protection of an FBI agent unless something was seriously wrong at NCIS.

"Mommy picked me up later, but her hands were shaking all night."

Gibbs swallowed.

"But she's okay?" he asked. "Your mom's okay?"

"Oh, yeah!" Madeleine said, brightening. "I just get scared sometimes. Would you come back from Mexico if something happened to Mommy?" she asked. "I don't want to live with Tony all the time."

There was some sort out outraged squeal from the background, and then a smacking noise – and for a second, Gibbs wondered why the hell Ziva and Tony were forming some sort of babysitting team – and then he re-focused. He wasn't surprised by how much his blood rushed at the thought of Jen getting hurt - -but he was unprepared for the emotion; he suddenly missed her voice more than anything.

"Your mom's not there?" he asked, making sure. His voice was a little hoarse.

"No," Madeleine said simply. "I'm staying the night here," she added. "Mrs. Diane is picking me up tomorrow and taking me and Emily to the zoo, so I'll see Mommy later," she explained.

"You keep an eye on her for me," Gibbs said firmly.

"I will," Madeleine answered solemnly. "Hey, guess what?" Madeleine asked, switching subjects?"

"What?"

Gibbs picked up the box he had been painting and resumed.

"Mom and I have been making scratches on the boat," Madeleine said smugly, and Gibbs paused, glaring at nothing in particular. "It's so you can fix it with me when you come home."

He snorted slightly, and shook his head.

"I need to hurry, then," he said.

"Yes, Daddy," Madeleine answered emphatically. "Yes, _please_."

He nodded to himself.

"Emmy, I'm going to send you a box for your birthday. It's full of treats for you - -but the box is for Mom, okay?" he said gruffly, clearing his throat.

Madeleine said something he didn't quite understand, and then acquiesced. She sighed, and then she said.

"Ziva said its bedtime," she admitted unhappily. "She said you don't get to interrupted bedtime just because you're not here."

Gibbs smirked to himself – that sounded like something Jenny had told Ziva to say, but he agreed with it – he didn't have the privilege of screwing up the routine; he'd given that up when he couldn't get himself together. He just steeled himself for goodbye, and agreed.

"Your next letter should be there Wednesday," he said gruffly, "and I'll try to make this package get to you on your exact birthday."

"It's in 8 days," Madeleine sang.

He smiled – he knew. He remembered.

"You be good," Gibbs said roughly. "I love you, Emmy Jane."

"I love you, too, Aba! Oh, oh – and Ziva told me to say this – _'aht-lo-levad'_ \- - it means, you are not alone!"

Gibbs nodded.

He said goodbye again, and told her he loved her, and hung up, letting the phone rest next to him. He looked out over the ocean, and ignored the footsteps behind him, sinking back into the conversation – what had happened with Jen? Was she really all right?

Mike Franks cleared his throat.

"You talk to your woman this time?" he asked sharply, glaring down at Probie.

Gibbs didn't bother telling him Jen had been at work, he just said –

"No."

Franks slapped him hard in the back of the head.

* * *

Jenny was restless on Saturday afternoon, hence the cleaning. She loathed vacuuming and dusting with a passion, but she'd had little to do all day and she didn't like being in Gibbs' house alone – she was waiting for Tobias Fornell to drop Madeleine off – they had plans to go through some toys in her room and donate a bunch of the ones she didn't play with anymore.

It was a tradition Jenny had started when she moved back to the States; before every birthday, Madeleine chose things to donate to less fortunate children to remind her how lucky she was that people bought her lots of gifts on her own birthday. Jenny's father had used to make her do it, and she liked the lesson it taught – granted, Madeleine didn't seem too broken up about giving toys away when she knew she was getting new ones, but Jenny hoped it was instilling a charitable trait in her daughter.

Oz was barking his head off at the vacuum cleaner, so Jenny gave up, turned it off, and left it sitting near the bookcase. She sat down on the couch and went back to looking over the last few personnel files she'd have to deal with before she left NCIS in September – and one of those files was Gibbs'.

It was almost official, though the announcement wouldn't come until mid-August, when the Vance's were comfortably settled in their new house and Leon was available for round the clock transition into the Director's chair – Jenny was taking the position at NSA that made her a consultant and a linguist. For the time being, she was going to be working nights – which would be excellent, as she'd work while Madeleine was asleep and sleep while Madeleine was at school. She had negotiated a substantial salary – though it didn't rival Director's pay – and extremely good benefits, including a chunk of incentive pay – given to her to convince her ultimately to leave NCIS – that would go in Madeleine's college fund.

There were still things to work out and negotiate, but she had decided it was best to take the job – without discussion with Gibbs, if he was going to continue to make himself unavailable to her – because in the long run, it would be best for her daughter and for her relationship. She wanted time, when he came home, to be with him – live with him, know him – because she thought it wouldn't necessarily be conducive to his continued health if she worked nonstop when he came back.

She stared at his personnel file – her superiors had asked her to determine whether he was going to be terminated or return to work – she couldn't answer that. She hadn't considered the repercussions to his job when she had made the personal decision for their family, and she had been discussing options with Leon Vance as to what to do. She knew Gibbs would come back to work at NCIS; she didn't know how to convey that to the higher powers. Her options at the moment were to terminate, or to place him on a suspension, in which case he'd have to re-qualify for everything when he returned, and do a psych evaluation.

She didn't necessarily think that was too much to ask.

She groaned inwardly and pushed his file away – she opted to look over Ziva's, and authorize expedited agent status should Ziva complete her citizenship application satisfactorily. The private discussion with Ziva she'd had about this had ended with Ziva deciding that if things between herself and her father did not get better in the next few years, she'd apply for US citizenship – but she wasn't ready to cut ties yet, so Vance had agreed to keep her position in tact.

Jenny rubbed her neck – it was still sore from her ordeal last week – and sat up when Oz trotted up to her and dropped a tennis ball into her lap. She scratched his ears and threw it for him, rolling her eyes when he nearly crashed into the fireplace – only to abandon the ball when the front door open and Madeleine skipped in.

"Mom, we saw giraffes making babies!" Madeleine shrieked, before she said hello – before she said anything, really.

Jenny raised her eyes to the heavens – _lovely_; her daughter had spent the morning watching zoological porn. It was one of those moments when she ached to share a dubious look with Jethro.

Madeleine threw herself over the couch dramatically and tossed her small duffle bag to the floor.

"Hey," she said, wiggling her eyebrows and peering up at Jenny. "Mrs. Diane wants to talk to you."

Jenny stared at her daughter. She tried to hide her disgust at what she'd just heard – but her face soured slightly and she narrowed her eyes.

"Tobias didn't bring you home?" she asked – she felt like whining and throwing her own fit.

She never interacted with Diane. She just didn't. Gibbs liked it that way, Jenny liked it that way, and as far as she knew, Diane also liked it that way. They had spoken briefly and robotically one or two times – but nothing about their daughters' friendship convinced them they had to be peachy with each other.

Madeleine popped her lips and shook her head.

"Mrs. Di said if you aren't busy," she went on. "I didn't do anything rude at the zoo, I swear," she added.

Jenny gave her a look and got up. She scowled to herself – she was in shorts and a t-shirt and her hair was tied up; she looked a hot mess, and she vainly wished she looked a hell of a lot nicer – it was immature, but she didn't particularly care. She wasn't looking forward to having Diane gloat at her – and she was sure that was about to happen, considering the situation with Gibbs.

"I'm not in trouble, Mom!" Madeleine said again, peering over the couch as Jenny went outside.

She left the door open, and stopped on the front step. Diane was leaning against her car, looking at something on a shiny black iPhone – Jenny felt like scowling. Of _course_ the IRS issued iPhones. NCIS was still pushing damn blackberries on their finest. She cleared her throat, and Diane looked up. She slipped her phone away and came over.

"Madeleine insists she didn't do anything rude, but I'm guessing you beg to differ," Jenny said mildly, choosing to immediately break the silence.

Diane arched her brows.

"She behaved perfectly," Diane said, and Jenny felt a surge of relief – the last person she wanted Madeleine to behave like a miscreant around was Diane Fornell. "I'm surprised you'd think otherwise."

Jenny laughed.

"I'm not one of those mothers whose inclined to think her child never does anything wrong," she said dryly.

"Good. We need more of those. Neither am I," Diane said shortly. She put a hand on her hip. "The other day – Henry was shoved into a sandbox at preschool, and the other mother insisted her child would never do something so asinine – while Henry sits there with sand in his eyes and a bloody chin. I thought – if that were my kid, I'd beat him within an inch of his life."

Jenny nodded, shrugging lightly – she agreed, and she couldn't believe the way some of these parents today acted like their kids never made mistakes or needed to be corrected.

"Is Henry okay?"

Diane nodded.

"There's no need to coddle the boy," she said.

Jenny couldn't help but smile a little – in another world, maybe, she and Diane would have gotten on well. She waited a moment longer, and then she glanced behind her – and saw Madeleine staring at them over the back of the couch.

"Go get the boxes out of Daddy's closet," Jenny ordered sharply, and she reached out the shut the door a little. "Eavesdropping," she said to Diane in a curt tone, and then tilted her head pointedly – she wanted to hear what this was about.

Diane studied her a moment, and then jingled her keys, and took a deep breath.

"This may be inappropriate of me," she said tensely, "but I wanted to ask if Tobias has said anything out of line to you."

Jenny blinked, taken aback. She hesitated.

"Out of line … ?" she began. She swallowed. "Ah, do you mean … sexually?" she asked.

Diane glared at her. Jenny mentally kicked herself – nope, clearly Diane hadn't meant that, and now Jenny had dredged up those old you-stole-my-man feelings. She composed her face like a blank mask and tried not to look sheepish.

"I mean concerning – Leroy," Diane said. "Gibbs," she corrected, rolling her eyes a little. "He's been … irritatingly vocal at home about the issue."

Jenny let that sink in, and then shook her head warily, slowly understanding – Fornell had been cool to her recently, and now that she thought about it had started when Gibbs had left for Mexico – so, apparently, Tobias didn't agree with her decision. She pursed her lips slightly and turned up her nose.

"He hasn't," she said, her voice a little chilly.

Diane looked a little relieved. She reached up and put her fingers against her temple, and sighed.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said frankly. She sucked in her breath. "I wanted to make sure he wasn't sticking his nose where he shouldn't," she said abruptly, turning to go. She paused, and turned back. "For the record," she said, her eyes resting on Jenny's, "regardless of what Tobias thinks – because he's lost his little _bromance _partner," she drawled, "I understand why you did it. I think it's what he needed. You know the rest of us … we just tried to be what he wanted. We didn't try to make him realize he wanted us," she said.

There was something hollow to her voice, but also something firm, and – it made Jenny hopeful. Somehow, Gibbs' ex-wife telling her she was doing something right made her feel _better_. It – maybe it was because Diane was telling her blankly that what she was doing was different than what his ex-wives had done – and what they had done obviously hadn't worked.

"Anyway," Diane said shortly. She gestured at the house. "She misses him. Good luck," she said – and then she walked off, got into her car, and left – without another word, without much adieu – and it _didn't_ feel like an invasion.

Jenny leaned against the front door for a moment, and then she took a deep breath, and went inside - -so, today would be a day when she felt optimistic, and good about her decision.

Madeleine was standing there, and she grabbed Jenny's hand.

"Daddy called last night," she said happily, and put her hand on her hip sassily. "He asked about you. He told me to take care of you," she said primly, preening a little.

Jenny smiled – a genuine, warm smile, and arched her eyebrows.

"He did?" she asked sincerely.

Madeleine nodded, and she thought—today would be a day when she felt aggressively _optimistic_, and _inarguably_ good about her decision.

* * *

He woke up in a sweat – not entirely unusual on the Mexican beach, but this was a cold sweat – and jerked to the side, reaching out and groping anxiously for a warm body. He came up with nothing – his hand instead hung off the mattress on the floor he slept on and his knuckles dragged the wooden boards.

He closed his eyes and swore under his breath – he didn't know if the shock of the nightmare or the yelling in his ears had woken him up, but at least he hadn't been yelling out loud tonight. If he had, then Franks would have knocked on the wall and shouted at him to shut up.

He sat up and rubbed his forehead hard, trying to rub away the imagines. He dreamed he was on the Turkish flagship again, diving for cover as flames went up around him, thinking frantically of Madeleine – then waking up and trying to remember her name as she stood right in front of him while he asked her where Kelly was. He watched the events of his nightmares – the things that had happened – like he was a bystander, but it gave him clarity – somehow, the nightmares helped flesh things out.

He'd been reaching for Jenny. He consciously realized that almost immediately. His muscles throbbed and his head ached and he drew in a few deep breaths, wishing he was back home – then he could roll over and breathe her in, asleep and warm and alive next to him.

Why had it been so hard for him to snap back? It should have been easy. It was coming back to him so simply now, so quickly and harmlessly: of course he loved Jenny. He loved her, and he loved Madeleine, and he loved them like he'd only ever loved two people before them.

Had he put Jenny through too much now for her to still be waiting for him? He had always done that to the others. To Diane, to Stacy – he had done them so wrong; had he gone too far with Jenny this time?

He lay back and stared at the ceiling, his heard pounding. He'd have to come up with a new woodworking project tomorrow, to work out more of the stress and thoughts – that's what he did all day; repairing Mike's house, fortifying it, adding things, building random additions that weren't necessary – all because the work focused him, and it focused his thoughts while he did it. He attached breakthroughs to the work he'd done –

The roof – he realized in order to separate Madeleine and Kelly, he had to think constantly about Madeleine's favorite things and Madeleine's least favorite things, and stop dwelling on Kelly. The back door – he realized it wasn't helping him to spend down moments promising Shannon and Kelly he still loved them – they couldn't hear him; they didn't need him. The deck – he'd realized he needed to talk to Jen. The steps – he realized his final hurdle was Jen – because it had been easy to love Madeleine, to give himself to Madeleine, because children were easy when it came to love and understanding – but Jen was harder, because Jen needed to be loved as an equal, she didn't need to be loved like he loved children.

He turned over and grabbed his watch; squinting in the darkness until his head hurt and his eyes ached –

In Virginia, it was Madeleine's ninth birthday.

* * *

Madeleine giggled, curled up next to Jenny on the couch with a princess tiara on her head – they had done what they always did for her birthdays: a cook-out with the team, cake, some games, and then alone time with the family – she and Jenny were snuggled up with The Wizard of Oz playing in the background, exploring Madeleine's new gifts.

The team had done well this year – Madeleine was captivated with the old Torah Ziva had given her – Ziva said it was her sister's copy, and she hadn't been ready to part with it until now.

"I love Ziva so much," Madeleine sighed, murmuring through some verses. "Mom, why do you think she gives Tali's stuff to _me_?" she asked curiously. "What if she has her own daughter?"

"Hmm," Jenny murmured thoughtfully. "The letter she sent you about your necklace … your Dad showed it to me," she said. "She thinks Tali would have liked you to have her things, because Tali can't give them to her own children, though she wanted a lot of kids," Jenny explained. "And Ziva's, if she wants kids, can give her mother's things to them."

"Oh," Madeleine said, nodding. "What was Ziva's mother's name?"

"Rivka," Jenny answered.

"That's pretty. I'm naming my daughter that," Madeleine said immediately. She put down the Torah and picked up the box her father had sent her – beautifully carved, engraved with all kinds of flowers and nature scenes. She laughed and put her nose to it. "It smells so pretty," she sighed.

"It's sandalwood," Jenny said, stroking her daughter's hair back. She crinkled her nose. "Daddy's own personal perfume."

Madeleine laughed, and unlatched it, opening the box.

"He sent this softball because I said I hit a homerun for him," she said proudly. "Look, and he sent all this Mexican chocolate. He sent a Day of the Dead doll – it's cute, but it's kind of creepy – Abby loves it," Madeleine said. "He sent flower seeds, he says we can plant them when he gets back – and look, he sent a little charm bracelet, but it's made out of leather so it isn't as fragile."

Jenny held the bracelet gingerly, examining it.

"What kind of charms did he send?" she asked.

"My initials," Madeleine said. "M, J, and G – also a charm of a little puppy, because I love dogs – and the other charms are a cupcake, a red shoe, and a lion!"

Jenny smiled.

"And why did he send those other ones?"

"I think because – cupcakes are my favorite desert, and the red shoe is for Dorothy's slippers – and I _love_ the cowardly lion, because he's ironic!"

Jenny laughed, tilting her head back – Madeleine was so smart, and ever since Ducky had taught her what irony was, she'd been throwing the word out like it was a common occurrence for an eight – no, nine – year old. Madeleine looked up at her earnestly.

"He's getting better, Mommy."

Jenny nodded.

"I believe you," she said. "I know he is." She pointed to the box. "He only put 'J' on the box, though, sweetie," she said. "Why not all of your initials?"

Madeleine looked at it flippantly and shrugged.

"Oh, he said the box is for you. He told me on the phone."

She opened it, while Jenny was looking at her with some shock, and ran her hand over the lid until her fingers reached a point in the corner. She leaned back and pointed.

"Yeah, see, it's for you," she confirmed, nodding emphatically.

Jenny shifted and leaned in closer, looking to where Madeleine was pointing. There in the lighter wood – not stained or decorated with floral scenes, was the letter 'J' followed by a plus sign – followed by another 'J' – that was it.

_**J + J. **_

She tilted her head, and ran her own thumb over it.

"Jenny – plus – Jethro," Madeleine piped up, easily interpreting the message. She seemed unconcerned – but of course she was; it wouldn't occur to her that her parents would break up over this: she accepted that they would be together just like she accepted her father would come back perfectly fine.

But the engraving – it did something to Jenny.

She smiled, and her eyes stung.

"That's, um," she began, having to stop abruptly and swallow so she wouldn't betray too much emotion in front of Madeleine. "That's oddly romantic of your father."

Madeleine rolled her eyes and said nothing. She sighed and leaned back, watching the movie for a moment.

"Can you tie this on me?" she asked, holding up the bracelet.

Jenny nodded. She began lacing on all the charms.

"Wrist or ankle?" she asked. "Ankle might be safer."

Madeleine nodded, accepting the advice. She watched Jenny fixing the bracelet before she took Madeleine's foot and delicately tied the leather strip around her ankle.

"I miss Daddy," she said abruptly.

Jenny finished tying the knot, and then ran her hand over Madeleine's leg, looking up slowly and nodding her head.

"I know, ahuva," she said softly. "I miss him, too."

"Mommy…in a month…it's been a long time," Madeleine stammered – she was so used to not asking when he could come back, that she'd forgotten how to do it properly.

Jenny nodded, choosing her words carefully.

"It has. I know it has, Madeleine. I need Daddy to start talking to me, though, honey," she said honestly – Madeleine had picked up on what was going on; it didn't need to be hidden that she and Gibbs weren't speaking. "He needs to talk to me before we start gauging if he can come home."

Madeleine nodded. She licked her lips.

"I miss him more today than usual," Madeleine admitted. She sighed, and took off her tiara. "Pony was here all day and no one slapped his head," she lamented.

Jenny leaned over and kissed her temple.

"I can smack his head twice at work next time you're there," she promised.

Madeleine grinned wickedly. She looked up at Jenny.

"When do you start your new job?" she asked earnestly.

Jenny took a deep breath.

"I'm going to take a week of personal leave starting September first, so I can be home your whole first week of school," she said. "I start at the NSA on the eighth. You remember – I'll work every other Saturday and all day on Mondays, but every other day I work nights after you go to bed, so I'll be up to take you to school. I'll sleep while you're there and wake up when you're home."

Madeleine nodded – they had been over it a lot, and she felt very grown up because Mommy had even sat her down to ask her how she could feel about a change like that. She had been worried Madeleine would freak out because it meant no more NCIS days and a whole lot of changes – but Madeleine was secretly glad Mommy was going to be home so much more. She just wished it had happened during summer, so they could spend a lot of time together.

"What are we going to do on Saturdays?" Madeleine asked.

"Well, that's up to you. Daddy's team said you can pick any of them to hang out with, and they'll all take turns – except when they have weekend duty; then you can stay at NCIS," she answered with a smile.

Madeleine beamed – that would be _fun_. Things would change, but she'd still have the team, too – and she loved the team so much. There were so many times they had made everything better – just like they had helped when Kate had died, and when Ari had been mean, and when she thought Daddy was going to be killed.

"I want Ziva first," she said surely. "She's getting a kitten, and I want to help her pick it out."

"A kitten? Ziva hates cats," Jenny laughed.

"Yeah, but Tony saw one at a crime scene and it scared him so Ziva is going to buy one."

Jenny snorted – that sounded like Ziva. She agreed to talk to Ziva about taking Madeleine first when the time came – and that made her think, a little nostalgically, of the days in Israel when Ziva had rarely ever touched Madeleine – compared to now. It had all changed so much – and often times, remembering Israel made Jenny even more determined to get them all through this in one piece – the final piece being Gibbs back where he belonged.

The phone rang, and Jenny checked her watch – it was right around the time Gibbs usually called on Fridays – and it was perfect, because this Friday was Madeleine's birthday. She smiled as Madeleine gasped and jumped up, running for the phone and today, since her daughter was so happy, she only felt a small pang when she heard Madeleine shriek –

"_Daddy_!"

* * *

She had decided to be lenient tonight; she didn't enforce a bedtime, and when it was two hours later and Madeleine was still on the phone with her father – and half-asleep, Jenny noted, when she checked in on her – she didn't say anything or cut the call short; she retreated into her own bedroom and went about taking off her make-up. She sat on the edge of the bed and started brushing out knots in her hair, starting at the bottom, when Madeleine came in – yawning, and hold the phone against her leg.

She reached out one hand.

"I'm sleepy," she announced matter-of-factly. "Goodnight, Mommy," she said, rising on tiptoes to kiss Jenny.

Jenny hugged her.

"Happy Birthday," she whispered. "I'm sorry Daddy wasn't here," she added sincerely.

Madeleine nodded. She put the phone on the bed – Jenny assumed she was supposed to hang it up, then – and shrugged, her big green eyes fixed on her mother's.

"Home stretch," she murmured tiredly.

"Hmm?" Jenny asked.

Madeleine pointed at the phone.

"It's a baseball word," she said. "It means almost there."

"I know what it means," Jenny murmured.

Madeleine nodded earnestly, and yawned again.

"Home stretch," she repeated. "Daddy wants to talk to you," she said, and rubbed one of her eyes. "I didn't even say you wanted to. He just asked," she added. "'Night, Mommy."

She left Jenny – and the phone – in the master bedroom – and Jenny stared. She was so accustomed to not speaking to him – to hearing a dead line as Madeleine handed her the phone, or simply hearing Madeleine hang up and knowing that once again, Gibbs had chosen to go without contact.

She swallowed hard, still staring – frozen almost. She reached for the phone, and touched it gingerly. She closed her eyes - -grit her teeth – she'd spent so much time being angry with him for his refusal to communicate that she'd never considered what she was going to say. She would, then, be as much of the problem in him coming home as he was – the home stretch, as Madeleine said, was going to be _them_.

She held the phone to her ear.

"Jethro?" she asked, as calmly as she could.

She heard him clear his throat. Her fingers tightened on the phone. She waited.

"Hey, Jen," he said gruffly – his voice sounded rocky, uncertain.

With those words – a thousand things rushed to her mind – she could scream at him, she could start swearing, rail at him for doing this to her, for making her doubt herself, for refusing to talk to her – she could praise him with how good he'd been at making sure Madeleine knew he still loved her, she could kick his ass for leaving her hanging, for acting like she didn't need just as much reassurance – there was so much she wanted to say – but almost simultaneously, she realized that he knew all that – that he felt guilty – she could hear that in his gravelly, faraway voice – he was sorry.

She bit her lip, holding back a sob while she gathered together what she was going to say – he spoke first:

"I'm," he began hoarsely. "I'm – sorry I've only been talkin' to her."

She nearly choked – an apology? Her words spilled out –

"It's nice to hear your voice," she managed shakily. She laughed. "Was that an apology?"

He laughed a little, and she leaned back, lying in the bed. She held the phone tightly to hear ear, and stared at the ceiling. She bit her lip, listening to the silence – each of them trying to figure out what they were going to say.

"The box is very pretty, Jethro," she said finally – diplomatically, hopefully opening a dialogue – she was willing to work with him; not condemn him. "Thank you," she added softly.

He seemed to fall into a sort of embarrassed silence – and then he took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, he was composed.

"Jen, you okay?" he asked. He plowed on. "Emmy said … she made it sound like somethin' happened to you, a couple of weeks ago. She said she was at the Hoover building all day."

Jenny took a deep breath – so concern for her well-being had gotten his ass into gear, had coaxed him to finally talk to her. She took that as a good sign – the notion that he had a flesh and blood, living breathing woman at home he needed to check on, to engage with, rather than a dead one to mourn – she tried not to think about what Madeleine must have been going through if she'd so astutely picked up on the fact that something had happened to Jenny that day, and she decided it was best she not hide anything from Gibbs.

"There was an incident," she confirmed. "A suspect died in Ziva's custody. It was a hostage situation."

He listened quietly.

"I wasn't harmed, just shaken. I was worried about Madeleine, more than anything. Tobias made sure no one could get to her."

He was still silent. He cleared his throat.

"You didn't get hurt?" he asked.

She let out her breath easily.

"I sustained rope burns," she admitted. She smiled, but it faltered. "It was nothing compared to Cairo, Jethro," she said softly.

He surprised her.

"Be careful, Jenny," he said quietly. "I don't want you to get hurt."

It came very close to him saying he didn't want to lose her – god; he must have been working up to this phone conversation for so long. She bit her lip and smiled, closing her eyes – and then she took a deep breath.

"It contributed to my decision to leave NCIS," she began calmly.

"Emmy said you were getting a new job," he said, no accusation in his voice.

"It's a long story," she sighed, rubbing her jaw.

He grunted.

"I've got time, Jen," he said, and he snorted – she was glad to hear something like mirth in his voice. "I ain't doin' anything else down here."

She swallowed hard, and nodded to herself – Madeleine was right; this was the start of the homestretch.

* * *

_one more chapter to go!_

_-Alexandra _


	4. Three

_a/n - so it's been brought to my attention (because I'm an actual moron) that Madeleine should have turned 8 last chapter, not 9. Or I should have set this story in 2009. Whatever. The point is, I got distracted on timelines and fucked up. She's eight. She turned eight last chapter. I've been driving / unpacking all day and I'm too fucking lazy to go edit the whole fic, so if little stuff like that irks you, I'm really sorry - and this is the explanation. Hope it's still enjoyable! _

* * *

**September/October 2008**

In run down little dives like the Mexican cantina he frequented, a man could still smoke a cigarette without dragging his ass outside every time the longing struck – because this was Mexico, and anxious, overly-political lunatics hadn't taken control of all social choices yet.

Mike Franks snorted as he blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth and leaned back. He held his cigarette between his lips and cracked his knuckles, turning his head so he could keep the ancient corded phone between his ear and his shoulder – behind the bar, Camila Charo gave him a look and ducked under the cord quickly, clicking her tongue at him.

He shrugged, and shot her a wink – it wasn't his fault the cordless line was out of batteries. He had to take this call – it was supposedly important, though Franks was convinced that damn redhead lady Director though everything involving her was important – but if he wanted to get Probie's ass out of his Baja paradise and back to the Navy Yard, he needed to humor the broad a little.

"Well, I ain't no doctor, Lady Director," he growled into the receiver, "but I'd say it's about damn time he goes home."

"I'm not asking if you're tired of him. I'm asking you to assess – "

"I called you Shannon the other day on purpose, and he bitched at me for gettin' it wrong," Franks interrupted.

He rubbed his jaw, sighing, and sat up a little, taking the cigarette from his mouth.

"Look," he began, "Probie's been mopin' around down here for damn near six months. He's done his part keepin' in touch with that little girl and you – even though it took a coupla head slaps," Franks paused to mutter about that, and the woman on the other end of the line laughed quietly. "He ain't gonna get any better than he is, and I think if you leave 'im down here any longer he'll lose hope," Franks grunted. He hesitated, and then shrugged – to hell with it, he never had to deal with this woman again, theoretically: "I think you've punished him enough, you hear me?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"It was not a punishment," she said tersely. "He needed help. He needed to go."

Franks swallowed bitterly – he still didn't know why she hadn't sent Gibbs to a therapist or somethin', somewhere close to home – but he suspected she had her own damn womanly reasons that she'd never explain in a way he understood – all he knew was that watching Probie suffer like he had hadn't exactly been making his retirement peachy for the past few months.

"Mike," the woman said, "I hope you haven't been sitting around down there whispering poison into his ear."

"Whisperin' poison? Who the hell am I talkin' to, the poet laureate?" he groused sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"I mean – whatever your opinions about me are, I hope you've kept them close to the vest – it wouldn't exactly be helpful if you storm around telling him I'm some spiteful bitch determined to drown his happiness."

Franks gnashed his teeth a moment, trying to decide how to tell her he knew damn well he hadn't needed to goad Gibbs' bad feelings, and he'd definitely kept his opinions to himself – but he didn't want to look weak or admit to being that perceptive about emotions, so he sort of side-stepped.

"My only opinion concernin' you has got to do with a woman behind the trigger of a whole damn federal agency."

He decided a comment like that would piss her off enough to divert her – but he was vaguely wrong.

She laughed quietly.

"I am well aware of your opinion of women in power," she said tartly. "I don't run NCIS anymore, Special Agent Franks. I thought you knew that," she paused, and snorted a little snidely. "You're welcome to come back, now that it's returned to male hands – though they aren't white."

"Hey, I wasn't ever prejudiced," Franks snapped firmly.

"Prejudice is prejudice no matter which group you grace with it."

"No wonder he wanted to forget you," growled Franks. "Must be a nightmare, livin' with the fuckin' Dalai Lama."

She sighed.

"That was infinitely more hurtful than you thought it was," she said curtly, and he felt a small twinge of guilt – hell, she was right: he shouldn't be joking about Probie's mental problems. She was probably a fantastic woman, and Franks knew the little girl was sharp as a tack and sweet as candy, just from knowin' her a week or so.

He put out his cigarette on the bar – which earned him a rough slap with a wet rag from Camila – and leaned forward on his hand, rubbing his brow. He sighed roughly and decided to change his tune – as much as a grumpy old curmudgeon could.

"He's okay," he grunted seriously. "He doesn't want to be here anymore, girl, he wants to be home. He's run out of goddamn things to build, and I swear he's gonna tear down my cabin and re-build it, he's gonna get so damn antsy – "

Franks trailed off as she started laughing. He waited for her to quiet, and to think, and then she took a deep breath.

"Madeleine has a school holiday coming up," she said neutrally. "It's only one day, but if I take her out of school for a few days and one of them is in-service anyway, it won't hurt her academics."

"The kid's in grade school, she ain't learnin' anything but how to peel glue off her fingers."

Franks noted that his comment was ignored – though he thought it was funny – and Gibbs' lady went on, thinking as she spoke.

"I don't think it's a good idea to put him on a plane back up here and catapult him back into our lives," she said firmly. She stayed silent for a moment. She seemed to be thinking, and while she did, Franks realized she was right – it would be stupid to once again just thrust Gibbs back into the life he was supposed to know – and he sighed grudgingly.

"You ought to bring 'er down here," he suggested, making a face at himself.

She was silent a moment.

"You're suggesting Madeleine and I come to Mexico?"

"That's what I just said, innit?" growled Franks. "Probie built a whole damn extra room onto my cabin, there's room," he groused, trying to infuse as much reluctance into his offer as possible – didn't want her thinking he was too friendly, after all. "Ain't too hot down here now, either," he went on. "You come down, bring the kid, he passes the test – you take 'im back with you."

She seemed taken with the idea – he could somehow tell from the different kind of silence that fell when he stopped talking – and then she spoke.

"That's what we need," she said abruptly.

"What's that?" Franks asked, confused.

"_That_ – you're right," she told him. "He needs to spend some time with Madeleine and I in a setting that's unfamiliar – neutral, almost. No distractions, no triggers – just us, and him understanding what that means." The woman seemed to be talking to herself now. "I'm going to book a flight for – " she rattled off some dates quickly, and Franks forgot to write them down – didn't have a pen or paper, didn't really care – and then she said something that really made him roll his eyes –

"I do not want you to tell Jethro."

"Lady, you want me to keep it a secret that you're bringin' his kid down to 'im?" Franks asked. "You got any idea how happy it'll make 'im?"

"As sweet as it is that you want to see his little face light up," she teased, and Franks glowered, "I need him to face us blind. I don't want him to have had time to teach himself to be what he knows I want – I want to be able to confront him unexpectedly and see if he really is better."

Franks swallowed hard, clicking his tongue.

"That don't sound right," he muttered. "He ain't been down here practicin' some part like he's in a play. He's been tryin' to get better, like you wanted. You're jerking him around."

"I am not," she said aggressively. "He and I are very similar in this regard – we are very skilled at crafting an image and adhering to that – putting up walls so thick those who know us best can't penetrate them – I have to be able to catch him when those walls are down. That is the only way I will know," she paused, but he didn't get to break in before she was going again: "This is my child's father, Mike. He's supposed to be the unshakeable, constant rock in her life – and I cannot bring him home unless I am absolutely sure he can be what she needs – what Madeleine needs, my _Madeleine_."

Franks grunted. He wasn't ever going to understand this woman – he wondered if Gibbs did, or if he just loved her for some inexplicable reason even he couldn't understand. That was probably it – love and women were like that, in Franks' experience. He grit his teeth and sat back eyeing the clock on the wall. It was about time for Probie to trek up here from the Post Office and meet him, and he couldn't be caught on the phone with the old lady.

Franks was pretty sure Gibbs knew he talked to Madame Director on the sly, like a Big Brother reported on suspicious citizens, but he never said anything – and in his defense, Franks talked to her rarely, if only to give updates or give her an idea of what was going on. There had to be some kind of contact –and Franks thought she might need just a little more reassuring.

"He ain't havin' nightmares about losin' the other one anymore," Franks revealed tightly. "He talks in his sleep still, but now he won't shut up about you." He paused, rolling his eyes at himself – and decided he needed to be a jerk just to absolve himself of some of that mushiness. "Your name is Jenny, right? Or is that some other woman he's got?"

She laughed – the joke didn't even get to her; she was clearly glad to hear something like that.

She took a deep breath.

"Enjoy your next cigarette, Agent Franks," she said wryly, which was what she usually said before signing off – except this time, she added: "You won't be smoking a single one while my daughter is in the house."

The line went dead, and Franks stared angrily at the humming noise, setting the phone down and watching the cord snap it back towards the base. Camila glared at him as she grabbed it before it bounced to the floor, and hung it up neatly.

She pulled a bottle of tequila from under the bar and set it out before them, producing two small shot glasses from somewhere in her apron. She poured the shots expertly, and gave Franks a knowing, sly look.

"You have serious conversations with Senor Jethro's lady, _Mister_ Franks," she said.

He grunted, and took the shot she offered, glancing over his shoulder – there was Probie, walking in the door looking as much like a sullen, kicked puppy as ever. Franks tossed back the shot, wrinkling his brow – when had the woman said she'd be showing up on his beach? – and then he met Camila Charo's eyes.

"You got no idea," he growled.

* * *

Jenny sat back in her comfortable, familiar Director's chair – the only part of her new office that was familiar. She had left her luxurious and very private set up at NCIS behind for her new position at the NSA – and she had only allowed herself to bring the chair with her.

It was a very nice chair – but she wanted it more for psychological reasons; it helped her ease in, made her feel less like she'd lost all her power and had everything turned upside down on her in a bewildering way – it was just a chair, to be sure, but it had made her feel better as she adjusted to the strangeness of no longer being affiliated with the agency that had – well, that had essentially shaped her life as it was today.

She often sat in the smaller – though perfectly acceptable – office at the NSA headquarters and felt like she'd just walked away from everything she'd worked for in life. Then – quickly, in a sudden rush of clarity, she'd realize that while NCIS had once been the core of her life - because it had at a time been only the medium through which she planned to exert revenge on her father's killer – it was no longer all she had in her life; NCIS had given her purpose, when she was lost after her father's death; NCIS had thrown her together with Jethro, had tied her to Jethro – without NCIS there wouldn't be Madeleine – but now, now – she had reached the point at which it wasn't NCIS itself that was the centerpiece of her existence.

She missed it, more sharply now than she would in the future, and she respected what it had given her – and how hard she had worked to succeed there – but she knew she had made the right choice. She had been at NSA for merely four weeks and the difference was noticeable: she was less stressed, Madeleine was happier in a hundred ways, she didn't feel constantly ill at ease – and there were less tiresome politics and more hard facts.

In some ways, the split was logical – she never should have been at NCIS in the first place. Her university years had geared her towards linguistics, negotiations, national security, and politics – not detective work. She had let something dark get the best of her when she was young, and that something had fortunately come to a head before she could let it destroy her – and here she was –

Monitoring suspicious individual's conversations – well, their snores, at this point – in a cool office at four in the morning, mulling over her personal life while her daughter was sound asleep at home.

Madeleine was under the protection of Ziva David on this particular night, as Noemi hadn't been available and Jenny had been unexpectedly called in to keep an eye on a growing threat in a part of Syria. Ziva had left work to stay at Gibbs' place with Madeleine and the dog; she had instructions not to leave until Jenny was cleared to pass off her shift to the next available analyst who had a working knowledge of Arabic slang.

With her second cup of coffee in her hand and a lull in conversation to listen to – she had been pondering the conversation she'd had with Mike Franks just a few days ago. She was giving herself a chance to really begin solidifying what she'd suggested – that she and Madeleine go get Gibbs, and bring him home.

She had hung up the phone with him, and then been horrified to discover that instead of excitement, she'd felt anxiety and wariness at the idea of Gibbs coming home – to her dismay, she'd realized the situation in which he was gone had almost normalized, and she was afraid it might have for him, too – she was afraid of flying to Mexico only to discover that when – if – he'd come to terms with everything, it had severed their relationship. She was afraid to face him, and perhaps have to accept that their relationship was over – that they weren't a couple anymore, just parents who shared custody.

She didn't want to be that. She hadn't ever wanted to be that. She didn't – she wasn't even sure if she truly thought that's what would happen; so much of her deep down had so much faith in him, she hated herself for being afraid he would fail her.

But this had all been infinitely difficult, impossibly painful.

He had, from the time he began speaking to her again, spoken to her every single time he called Madeleine. He had eased back in to meaningful conversation – he was gruff, and shied away from the emotional stuff – but call after call, to her, he started to sound more like _Jethro_ – the Jethro she had had before the explosion. She had heard it, she had talked to Franks about his improvement – there was no denying it was there.

He was able to talk about things that had happened to them years ago, in Israel or in Paris, without pause or without mixing up names. He recalled details about Madeleine that were distinctly and individually _her_ and not an amalgamation of her and Kelly – he easily identified the team when Jenny filled him in on NCIS' most recent hijinks or pitfalls.

He was better, she could hear it, Madeleine believed it – it was only left to be seen, to be experienced.

She stressed over taking Madeleine, in case things went bad – she stressed over getting hopes up, or over setting him back – but then she told herself that perhaps all that was needless worry: she'd get to see her daughter shriek in excitement when she saw her father again, she herself would get to put her hands on Gibbs' shoulders, his arms, his chest, show him some kind of physical, real support – even if he was halfway there, it would be better than what he had been, after all.

There was no way to know if she didn't take a leap of faith.

She sat forward, adjusting her headset for volume. She turned to the personal laptop she brought with her, and opened a travel site, her fingers flying with determination as she searched for plane tickets. She had an opportunity, and she needed to take it – she needed to make the leap.

She winced as she considered the response she'd get for asking for an extended period off when she'd only just begun at NSA – she doubted her superiors would be happy, if they granted it at all – but she thought of Madeleine, asleep at home, and Gibbs, lying awake somewhere in Mexico and she had to take the risk – because hadn't he, once, years and years ago? Hadn't he risked his job when Madeleine had appendicitis, and flown to Israel immediately because she needed him?

It was her turn to take the risks and make the leaps – it was her turn to do what Gibbs had, without fail, always done when it came to Madeleine, right down to when he'd taken custody of a child he'd barely known and helped give her the life Jenny had sent him to Mexico to save.

* * *

It was a brisk day, one of those in-between summer and fall days when the weather was perfect and the sun hung around lazily – Jenny was glad to spend it outside on some bleachers, watching Madeleine at soccer practice.

She'd started with a recreational team when school started, getting her feet wet in the sport, and she seemed to be enjoying it immensely. She did a lot of laughing during the twice-weekly practices, and Jenny liked being able to watch from the sidelines without a Bluetooth attached to her ear or a security agent at her side – which was how she had spent most of Madeleine's sporting events, if she made them, while she was Director of NCIS.

An NSA analyst wasn't so high maintenance, though, and she was perfectly within her freedoms to sit on her own in one of Gibbs' old baseball caps, taking small sips from Madeleine's orange slushy and occasionally making small talk with one of the other mothers.

She usually liked the peace of watching Madeleine play, but today she was a bit antsy – not anxious, just excited for the event to end so she could get Madeleine to their favorite little bistro for dinner and surprise her – the planet tickets for Mexico were tucked neatly in a glossy purple envelope, and the closer it had gotten to time to reveal the surprise, the more Jenny had started longing to see her daughter's face.

She hadn't wanted to tell Madeleine too early, because she hadn't wanted her to lose focus on everything – which would immediately happen once she found out they were going to see her father. She was also trying to keep the trip on the down low – it wasn't that it was a secret from the team, she just didn't need them all privy to the plan in case it all crashed down around her ears – and she didn't expect Madeleine to keep it a secret. Her daughter was tactful and polite, and obeyed orders, but something this exciting was a lot for a little girl, and Jenny wouldn't dream of trying to make her hide her glee – so, the trip was kept secret.

Tonight, Madeleine would find out, and she'd finish her day at school tomorrow – and then they'd leave on the red eye flight for Mexico early Saturday morning.

She had had several more phone conversation with Franks since the initial one during which the visit was first proposed, and she was confident this was going to work out – and having faith was important. She had plane tickets, she had plans to stay, she had already spoken to Madeleine's principal and teacher to clear her absences, and she was mentally preparing herself to have Gibbs back home at the end of this trip – and it was very easy for her to acknowledge that she very much wanted him back. She was tired of living without him, and she sincerely hoped Franks had gauged Gibbs' correctly when he told her _the Probie wants to come home_.

"Mom," Madeleine gasped dashing over, breathless. She leaned forward and braced her hands on her knees, panting. "Mom, can you take a picture of me and Erica?" she wheezed, gesturing wildly at a friend standing by the sidelines.

Jenny blinked a couple of times and sat forward, brushing off her hands and standing up.

"Of course," she agreed, taking a few steps off the bleachers and flicking her hat up. She squinted, and slipped her hand into her pocket for her phone.

"No, no," Madeleine said quickly. "Erica has a cool camera – Mom, come look at it."

Madeleine was dragging her towards the sidelines – where practice was ending and kids were gathering water bottles and bags and going to meet their parents. Jenny came to a stop when Madeleine beckoned to her friend, and the other girl came over.

"You take the picture, and it shows up _immediately_," Madeleine explained, as if in awe.

"You just wave it around and boom, the picture is there!" Madeleine's friend Erica piped up, holding up something around her neck. "My mom found it in the attic. It's called, like, a polar bear camera."

Jenny laughed, genuinely amused – here she stood, with two perfectly intelligent little girls who truly had no inkling of what a Polaroid camera was. To think, it was something she herself had grown up with.

"It's a Polaroid, Erica," a woman said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly as she came up and straightened Erica's ponytail. She reached over the girl's shoulder. "I'm Maya, Erica's mother," she said.

"Jennifer," Jenny said, accepting the handshake. "Does Erica go to school with Madeleine?"

"No," Madeleine and Erica said together, and Maya shook her head.

"Erica goes to Suncrest Christian; her father is a guidance counselor there," she answered amiably. "I'd rather her be in public schools, but these recreational sports are the next best thing."

"Yeah we met today and now she's my best friend," Madeleine said seriously.

Jenny laughed again.

"Okay," she agreed, shrugging – tomorrow Madeleine's best friend would be Delia, and then it would go back to Emily – she switched a lot, but she always kept her friends close.

"So can you take the picture?" Madeleine asked eagerly.

"Please?" Erica added, smiling sweetly.

Jenny nodded, and held out her hands. She took the camera gingerly, and Maya came to stand next to her as the girls scrambled back and threw their arms across each other's shoulders.

"On three," Jenny instructed.

"Say 'goalie!'" Maya joked.

"_Goalie_!" the girls squealed, as Jenny showed her countdown with her fingers and then snapped a picture.

She waited a moment, for the photo to slide slowly out of the camera, and before she could take a peek, the girls had snatched it and were eagerly ogling it as they waited for their likenesses to appear. Maya laughed, and threw her head back in disbelief.

"Are we really old enough to have children who don't know what a Polaroid camera is?" she mused.

Jenny arched her brows, watching her daughter shriek as the picture became clear.

"It's a whole new world," she mused.

"Tell me about it," Maya sighed. "Mine asked me for a Twitter yesterday!"

Jenny was still pondering that one as they said their goodbyes and she helped Madeleine get her duffle back and re-tie one of her shoes. Madeleine kept looking with awe at the picture that Erica had decided she could keep – they'd take more next practice! – and she skipped a few feet and then turned, walking backwards.

"Don't trip, babe," Jenny warned.

"Mom, I can't _wait_ to tell Daddy about this camera," Madeleine cried, waving the picture. "'Cause cell phones confuse him so much."

Jenny smirked.

"If there's one thing I can promise you, Madeleine, it's that your father knows what a Polaroid camera is."

That being said, though – she got an idea.

* * *

She decided not to give Madeleine the envelopes at dinner – though she still took her daughter to their favorite little place on Capitol Hill, a nice relaxed hole-in-the wall that was not often very busy and had good, cheap food. Jenny preferred it to nice restaurants because she thought it a waste to buy Madeleine expensive food when she'd never eat it all, and she thought certain privileges should be saved for when she was older. The nice places – when she could manage to convince Gibbs to go to one – were for date nights and adult time.

Madeleine, excited to still be out on the town on a school night – on practice days, she usually had homework and then bed, strictly – chattered the whole time, in a brilliant mood – and she'd been even more pleasantly baffled when Jenny dragged her to a pawn shop in Georgetown, hoping to find a Polaroid camera.

It was late – too late for an eight-year-old – when they got back to the house and Oz greeted them with kisses and affectionate howling. Madeleine pranced around the living room holding her new treasure, trying to get Oz to sit so she could take a picture of him.

"Mom – Mommy, he's gonna make 'em all blurry!" she whined.

Jenny smiled neutrally and set her things down in the kitchen, listening to Madeleine and the dog goof off – there was simply no way to get bed time down in a timely manner tonight, and she calmly decided to give up – maybe she'd just let Madeleine sleep in a little tomorrow, and take her to school late.

She swept her cap off and pushed her hair back, trying to get loose strands out of her face. It was shorter than it had been when Gibbs had last seen her, though still long enough for ponytails and up-dos. She wondered what he'd think of it – mostly, though, she wondered what he'd think of her.

"Madeleine," she called. "You want some ice cream?"

Madeleine scrambled into the kitchen, and she looked half-elated, half-suspicious.

"Mother," she demanded seriously. "Did I do something super awesome, or am I about to be murdered?" she asked.

Jenny looked at her, taken aback.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ice cream, dinner out, a new _toy_? I mean it's a Thursday in October; it isn't Christmas! One time, Tony told me Ziva was only nice to him one day because she was eventually going to murder him – and he said goodbye really dramatically – "

"No one is going to get murdered," Jenny said, rolling her eyes – _except DiNozzo_, she thought to herself. The man had absolutely no filter when it came to young children.

"So I did something super awesome?"

Jenny shrugged.

"Hey, maybe I'm the one who is super awesome," she teased, "maybe the treats are for me."

Madeleine stared at her for a minute, and then beamed, and – quicker than Jenny could blink – took a picture of her mother, standing there in casual clothes, with Gibbs' baseball cap in her hand, looking domestic and at peace.

Jenny screwed up her face and groaned when she heard the click, and Madeleine giggled. She took the picture and flitted away with it, calling over her shoulder –

"You're always awesome, Mommy. Chocolate ice cream, please!"

Jenny nodded to herself and went about fixing treats – albeit small ones. Madeleine had been fairly spoiled today – and there was no doubt she'd be spoiled to ruins when her father got ahold of her this weekend. She couldn't seem to bring herself to care, though, or to exhibit the usual mothering rigor she was good at – she was too excited, apprehensive, and wary herself.

"Can you change into pajamas, please?" she called. "And put that bandana Daddy sent you from Mexico in your hair – the pretty green one? I never got to see it."

Madeleine answered a muffled agreement and Jenny brought the bowls into the living room, allowing Oz to nuzzle her knees as she sat down. She looked around covertly for the picture Madeleine had taken, but it had disappeared. She scowled – she didn't like candid pictures of her floating around.

Oz eyed the ice cream covetously, but just a sharp word had him sitting pretty and obediently at her feet. Madeleine scampered back a moment later, prancing into the room and touching her hair primly. Gibbs had sent her a hand-woven green bandana to wear in her hair – mostly green, but flecked with bright orange and festive yellow – and it looked gorgeous on her, Jenny noted. She hadn't seen it yet because Madeleine had been saving it for a special occasion.

Jenny smiled to herself, slipping the envelope from her back pocket and placing it next to the bowls – this was a good occasion.

"Where's the camera?" she asked.

"Oh," Madeleine uttered softly, and went to grab it. She came skipping back, and placed it on the table, grabbing her bowl and snuggling up next to Jenny. She looked up, clutching her spoon. "Isn't it pretty?" she asked, batting her lashes.

"It looks lovely on you," Jenny agreed. She touched Madeleine's chin softly. "Daddy must have known it would bring out your eyes."

"Because they're green, Mommy," Madeleine said earnestly. "Like _yours_."

Jenny nodded, and Madeleine took a spoonful of ice cream, plowing on with her mouth full.

"I asked him if Kelly had green eyes, too, and he said no. He said Kelly's eyes were blue and her mom's were blue and so they were all blue-eyed Gibbses. And then I asked him if he wished my eyes were blue and he said no," Madeleine paused for another spoonful. "He said he loved my green eyes," she said proudly.

Jenny bit her lip, thrilled to hear it. She hadn't known Madeleine was asking Jethro about Kelly or Shannon, but it was such a good sign that _he_ was cooperatively talking to _her_ about it.

"Where's that picture you took?" Jenny asked, leaning forward and reaching for the camera. She brought it into her lap and examined it again, making sure she knew how to work it - she wanted to capture the moment perfectly; she thought Gibbs would like to see Madeleine's face when she saw they'd be going to see him.

Madeleine looked at her slyly.

"I hid it," she said smugly. "I'm going to send it to Daddy. You can't stop me."

Jenny looked exasperated.

"Why?"

"He asked," Madeleine said, shrugging. She licked her spoon. "He asked why you weren't in any of the pictures I send him. He said you did the same thing when I was a baby in Israel, and that the whole time he only got one or two with you in them and it was because Tali sent them secretly."

Jenny shrugged.

"I don't like being in pictures," she murmured, distracted by the thought of Gibbs asking for a photo of her – distracted more by how much he seemed to vocalize to Madeleine about her.

"But you're pretty," Madeleine said, brow furrowed.

Jenny looked over at her, and smiled.

"Thank you," she said nicely, and she leaned forward, taking the envelope off the table.

"What's that?" Madeleine asked, mildly interested. She was already almost done with her small amount of ice cream.

Jenny smiled, hesitating a moment. She handed it to Madeleine.

"How have your conversations with Daddy been going?" she asked, as Madeleine took the envelope and held it uncertainly.

Madeleine blinked.

"I don't know," she said bluntly, as straightforward as an eight-year-old knew to be. "He sounds like Daddy. He doesn't call me Kelly." She paused, and then she perked up a little, and snapped. "He doesn't get confused about Oz," she remarked.

Jenny looked bewildered.

"Remember?" Madeleine prodded. "When he … before you – well, before he left," she stammered, flushing – and Jenny knew she'd been about to say 'before you made him leave' but she'd refrained from sounding accusatory. "He used to ... he'd get scared when Oz came up to him? Like he didn't know we had a dog? You kept having to tell him it was our dog?" Madeleine frowned. "Not scared. He doesn't ... Daddy doesn't get scared. He just ... didn't know what was going on," she mumbled.

Jenny remembered – one of those nights had been the last straw. Madeleine hadn't been awake for that one, but Oz had come ambling into the bedroom as he sometimes did, and he'd moseyed over and licked Gibbs' nose while he was sleeping – and it had scared Jethro, regardless of what Madeleine thought; he'd jumped up swearing, elbowed Jenny hard in the ribs, and been disoriented for so long it had ended up with her splashing cold water on his face and repeating her name to him over and over again.

"_Jenny. Jenny. I'm Jenny. It's Jenny, Jethro."_

"_Yeah, I got it."_

"_Say it."_

"_Jenny." _

She shivered at the memory. He had to have gotten better since then – he had to have.

"Well," Madeleine was saying matter-of-factly. "He got on to me about Oz," she said dryly. "I was telling a story about feeding him popcorn, and he got the Dad tone and told me to stop with the people food."

"He scolded you?" Jenny asked, taken aback – that was definitely a good sign.

Madeleine shrugged.

"Eh," she said, picking at the envelope. "Can I open this? What is it?" she asked again, looking up surreptitiously.

Jenny inclined her head.

"I was thinking," she began, "maybe instead of mailing him a picture of me…" she trailed off, nodding at the envelope again.

Madeleine tilted her head, and then opened it slowly. She let the tickets slide out, and peered at them, focused and silent, while Jenny held up the camera, hoping she'd have the good luck to snap a memorable one. She saw the brief moment of confusion in Madeleine's brow, and then she saw her daughter freeze, her knuckles whiten as she worked it out – and right as Madeleine bolted into a sitting position and began to leap up and scream, she snapped a picture.

Oz howled at the noise, and Madeleine planted her feet on the ground, looking hard at her mother.

"MEXICO?" she screamed. "MEXICO?" she repeated. "Mommy, Ima, please " she dissolved into a babble that was half-Hebrew, and Jenny had a moment of admiration for how well she still remembered the other language before she reached out and took Madeleine's hands, trying to calm her a little bit.

"Honey, honey," she laughed. "Don't have a stroke."

"Mommy," Madeleine cried, breathless. "Mommy, are we going to see him? Are we going to see Daddy?" she looked so apprehensive, so hopeful, and Jenny burst into a grin.

She nodded.

"Yes," she said emphatically. "Yes, ahuva, we're going to Mexico on Sat – "

Madeleine threw herself at Jenny and started shrieking, drowning out the last words. She clutched her mother tightly and wouldn't let go, hugging and hugging and hugging. Jenny just hugged her back, stroking her hair, resting her chin on the little girl's shoulders – it was so worth it, surprising her like this; it was so worth it.

Oz, fascinated by the commotion, wagged his tail and barked joyfully, while Madeleine just tried to cram herself into Jenny's lap, snuggling closer and closer.

"I love you!" she cried enthusiastically. She pulled back and stared Jenny in the eye earnestly. "Can we bring him home, Ima?" she asked, lips puckering. "_Please_, can we bring him home? Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and – and – " she lost her breath, and licked her lips, eyes wide and begging earnestly.

Jenny cupped Madeleine's face in her hands. She knew she couldn't promise anything, but she could offer hope – and, she had a good gut feeling about this; a _good_ one.

"I want to, Madeleine Jane," she said hoarsely. "I want to bring him home, too."

Madeleine bit her lip, and buried her face in Jenny's shoulder, hugging her again. She started squealing, letting the excitement out, and Jenny leaned forward to check the picture she'd taken – and it was perfect.

Madeleine, her face glowing with delight Jenny hadn't seen – hadn't really seen – since Gibbs had left: leaping off the couch with the tickets to Mexico in her hands.

It was going to be one that would sit in Jethro's wallet until it was faded, crinkled, and flimsy.

* * *

Jenny was glad Madeleine had been on several flights in her life, otherwise the excitement of where they were going combined with possible anxiety over flying might have combusted very badly. She was happy as a clam on the flight, though – not a bit of nervousness in her – and she was particularly fascinated by how empty it was.

"There were so many people when Noemi and I flew to California to see you," she remarked, straining her neck to look at the empty seats while remaining buckled in. "And I think there were lots of people on the plane from Israel, but I don't know. One time Daddy told me he gave me a sippy cup with Benadryl in it. So I was asleep, probably."

Jenny rolled her eyes at the thought. No wonder Jethro had told her he'd had no problems with Madeleine on the actual flight – just when she realized they were in a different country and her mother wasn't going to show up.

"This is a red eye," Jenny informed her. "It means it's the latest or earliest flight, so it's last minute for a lot of people – or convenient for some business travellers. Daddy actually used to take them to get to Israel, when he got off work late."

Madeleine nodded quickly, peering out the window – it was dark outside, and she knew Mom wanted her to sleep on the plane, but she couldn't calm down. It had been kind of normal over the past few months to convince herself it was all okay without Daddy and to just wait patiently for the day when he was better - but now how much she'd really missed him all this time just hit her full force and she couldn't contain her excitement or her anticipation.

"I wonder if he's taller!" she burst out happily, whipping around to look at Jenny.

She laughed.

"He's full grown, Maddie," she said calmly, smirking in amusement. "I think he'll be the same size."

"Do you think anything will be different?" Madeleine asked eagerly.

Jenny thought about it for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip.

"Well," she began, trying to consider if Gibbs would have made any changes – not that there was really that much men did, outside of drastic things. "I think his hair might be longer," she guessed.

"Ooh," Madeleine said softly. She crinkled her nose. "Long like a hippie, or normal long?" She asked, remembering – he had cut it so, so short right after he'd gotten his memory back, and Madeleine hadn't liked it very much. Her mother had told her he did it because he was still feeling closer to his Marine self than his current self, but she still hadn't liked how … bald he had looked. She liked her dad with an overgrown crew cut.

"Normal," Jenny placated. "He'd throw a fit if his hair was longer than his ears," she promised solemnly. "Hmmm," she thought again. "He might have some facial hair, though."

"Like a beard?" Madeleine squealed incredulously.

Jenny smiled.

"A small one," she allowed.

"Daddy would never grow a beard."

"He had facial hair once," Jenny told her. She gestured at her cheeks. "Here, and here," she pointed. "It was all scruffy, like Mr. Franks' was, except your father's was all grown in – and browner."

"Daddy's hair is brown?"

Jenny nodded, shrugging slightly.

"Used to be," she replied, and wrinkled her nose. "Before we made him go grey."

"Silver," protested Madeleine, drawing out the word. "He's silver. He's precious metal."

Jenny burst out laughing.

"Please tell me DiNozzo called him that," she hoped.

Madeline giggled, and shook her head.

"Daddy said it," she confided, whispering. "He was being silly."

Jenny leaned back and reached over, taking Madeleine's hand.

"He is silly," she said, her heart speeding up a little.

She hoped beyond hope this was going to turn out exactly like they needed it to.

"Mom," Madeleine said. "When did Daddy have face hair? When I was a tiny baby?"

"No. It was before we had you, when we were working together. We stayed in a country called Serbia for a little while, and he didn't bother to shave. He looked like a grizzly bear."

"Did you liiiiiiiiiiike it?" Madeleine trilled.

Jenny gave her a look and sighed. She ruffled her hair.

"Yes, Curious George, I liked it," she confessed. She tilted her head, and smiled to herself – it had been a nice look, though she wasn't sure if she'd feel the same now. She wasn't sure – now – if she wanted him to look older; to be reminded of how much he'd been through over the years.

Madeleine shifted and scooted over, nestling up to Jenny as best as possible in the airline seats and resting her chin on her palm. She stared out the window into the darkness thoughtfully, yawning – but she wasn't tired, she was thinking a million and one things.

"How long after we get there until we see him?" she asked.

"We're going to go check in to a hotel first," Jenny said, "just in case we need to stay out of Mr. Franks house. Then we'll freshen up and go right to see him," she promised.

"I want to stay with Daddy," Madeleine said automatically.

Jenny nodded.

"And we can, Mr. Franks said that was okay," she told Madeleine calmly, "but we are going to have a hotel room to go to just in case we overstay our welcome or we need to give Daddy some time."

"Or if you and Daddy want to be alone," Madeleine said astutely.

Jenny didn't answer that – it seemed like a perfectly innocent comment, but she didn't want to have a conversation about it. Madeleine, precocious and intelligent as she was, had been informed regarding the biological manner of reproduction a couple of weeks ago, but she hadn't exactly put it together that people – much less her parents – engaged in it for pleasure. Jenny was letting it stay that way for the moment.

She didn't think they'd be staying in the hotel room, and she didn't want to – but she thought it was a good safety precaution. She also wanted some time to talk to Madeleine about some things, prepare her for how awkward or difficult this might be – the nitty gritty stuff. She was responsible for all of it these days, so she found herself apprehensive that Madeleine constantly thought she was the cold, mean parent.

"Mom?" Madeleine whispered tentatively, looking up. She bit her lip, and crinkled her nose cutely. "You think Daddy will be happy to see us, when we surprise him?" she asked nervously.

Jenny touched her nose gently, and bent to kiss her forehead.

"Yes, ahuva," she murmured firmly. "I think it will make his whole day."

Madeleine beamed, and sat up a little. She smirked.

"You think he will run across the beach to grab me up like in an old movie?" she asked wryly.

Jenny laughed, tilting her head skeptically.

"Ah," she began. "Your father is pretty stoic, baby," she snorted. "I think you better just count on some stunned, masculine staring."

Madeleine looked at her thoughtfully, and then pursed her lips primly.

"I think he'll run," she said assertively. She nodded her head once. "I run to him when he comes home from work," she pointed out, and then her little face took on some determination, and she looked Jenny dead in the eye. "I think he owes me a run."

Jenny reached out to push Madeleine's hair back, and smiled softly – he did owe this steel flower of a child some running, and she suddenly hoped he didn't disappoint.

* * *

It was warm in Mexico, and for that – Jenny was grateful. The October cold had started to settle into her bones in Virginia, and it was nice to stave off the inevitable winter a little longer. Madeleine, delighted by the sunlight and the chance to wear what she considered her cuter clothes – also known as Spring attire – had skipped through the streets while Jenny directed the taxi to their hotel in lilting Spanish – all the while thinking that it would be helpful if Gibbs were here; he spoke the language.

She could speak so much, read so much, and understand so much – not Spanish. She was awful with Spanish.

The little hotel Franks had found them – on the good word of his cocktail waitress friend, Camila Charo – seemed nice and safe enough. There were two children playing ball in a small courtyard when Jenny and Madeleine checked in, and that soothed Jenny's nerves; kids looking happy were a good sign.

They didn't unpack anything in the hotel room; just stepped in to rest for a moment – at least, Jenny did. Madeleine was unable to sit still, pacing, jumping around, yammering on one moment and silently skipping around the next. She wanted to see her father, and Jenny didn't blame her – but Mommy needed a minute to gather her bearings.

"Are we riding horses there? Daddy said he rode a horse down once."

"No, sweetheart," Jenny said tensely. "I think we should walk."

"If it far?"

"It's not necessarily close, but the weather is nice and it will be good exercise. Walking on the beach is lovely. We just leave the town, take some turns … and it's a decent stretch of open beach before we reach the little cottage."

Madeleine nodded rapidly, skipping into the bathroom. She jolted Jenny as she applied a light layer of mascara but Jenny didn't reprimand her. She just took a deep breath and started again.

"You think we should have brought Oz?" Madeleine asked lightly.

"I think he would have been scared on the flight," Jenny answered.

Madeleine nodded, and picked up some lipstick, looking at it. She placed it down gently, skipped out humming, and then came back in, twirling some of her hair around her finger. She yanked on it, pulled it over one shoulder, and started twisting it, her eyes on Jenny.

Her mother applied a tiny amount of mascara, a bit of blush, thin lines of black liner, and something that looked like gold powder. She watched as her mother reached for some of the lipstick tubes and frowned.

Madeleine cleared her throat.

"Mommy," she said, almost whining.

Jenny sighed and turned, crouching down to her daughter's level.

"I am sorry," she said sincerely, lowering her voice. "It's been a long time since I – we've – seen him, Madeleine," she said, trying to be honest, but also not willing to go into her person insecurities with an eight-year-old. "I am trying to be brave."

Madeleine looked at her softly.

"You don't have to be brave to see Daddy," she said earnestly. "He's not scary."

Jenny didn't know how to explain herself. Things could go wrong, and things could go right – and she wasn't going to know which way things would happen until the moment they took Gibbs by surprise. She second-guessed herself – was this trip a good idea, was keeping him in the dark a good idea? Had sending him away really helped, or was she about to walk into the end of her relationship and face custody battles, child support payments, and monthly, painful meet-ups?

She took a deep breath, and smiled as bravely as she could for Madeleine.

"I want you to know that no matter what happens, your father and I love you more than anything in this world. More than we love our jobs or ourselves or," she stopped short of saying 'each other' because she didn't want to scare or confuse Madeleine. "We love you. Even if this isn't the right time, and Daddy has to stay a little longer, I love you, and he loves you, and we are trying so hard."

Madeleine nodded. She shrugged, and just nodded, her eyes on Jenny's. She stepped back a little, and leaned against the doorframe. She got quieter, and remained still, and Jenny straightened up, trying to decide on lipstick again.

"Let me touch up my hair a little," Jenny said, breathing slowly. "Then we can go."

Madeleine stood on tiptoes, and looked in the mirror. Mom's hair was pulled up very messily – it had gotten messy on the plane and on the drive here – and it was falling down in front and framing her face like the wind had tangled it up. She watched as Mommy swept on some lipstick and reached for a brush.

"It looks pretty," Madeleine piped up quietly.

Jenny paused.

"It looks nice like it is," Madeleine said. "Why are you fixing it?"

Jenny compressed her lips, and swallowed. There was no harm in a little bit of truth.

"I want to look presentable for Daddy," she admitted, her cheeks colouring a little.

Madeleine stepped forward.

"I do, too," she said, suddenly looking worried. "Is my hair pretty enough? Am I too young for lip stuff?"

Jenny turned and looked down at her, brow furrowed.

"Yes," she said, half-distracted, "but – Madeleine, Daddy doesn't care how you look. You look perfect. You're his daughter, you don't need make-up or clothes," Jenny told her earnestly. "It doesn't matter how you look, you understand me? I told you – he loves you; end of story."

Madeleine blinked at her, and folded her arms.

"Then why does it matter if you look _presentable_?" she fired back quietly, quoting the word. "You're his … wife … basically," she stammered – Madeleine had a problem using the world 'girlfriend' for people she thought were too old to be not married. It was usually amusing…but it hurt a little, this time. "He loves you," she added, bristling. "I don't think it's because of how you _look_."

Jenny looked at the little girl in the mirror, pausing. She stood there a long moment in silence, letting what Madeleine had said sink in. She found herself feeling foolish, sheepish, silly – worrying what she looked like when her daughter was dying to see her father; acting like physical appearance had anything to do with their relationship, at this point.

She was stalling, and a nine-year-old was spouting wisdom at her.

She let her hands fall, and swallowed, abandoning the bathroom.

"You're right," she said, taking a deep breath. "Let's go see Daddy."

* * *

The beach seemed endless; footstep after footstep on the plush, thick sand seemed to extend the journey rather than shorten it – and once she began to see the cabin standing near the ocean's edge, her throat felt tight and she resisted the urge to plant her feet and refuse to move further – but she was the adult here.

Instead, she had to keep walking – with her head up, and her face composed as if everything was perfect; everything was peachy keen – and she had to grab Madeleine's hand in a tight, vice-like grip and prevent her from taking off like a bullet down the beach and bursting into that house.

Madeleine made a noise of protest and stomped her foot, and Jenny quickly stepped in front of her and went down on one knee, letting their bags fall to the sand for a moment and touching her daughter's shoulders gently.

"Madeleine," she said calmly. "I know you're excited. I know; I understand that. You have to remember that he doesn't know we're coming. He might be shocked; it might take him a moment to process this. Try not to get upset if that happens."

"I'm not going to get mad at him, Mommy," she promised earnestly. "I want to hug him!"

"I want you to let him come to you," Jenny said in the same calm voice. She thought about it for a minute. "The same way you let other people's puppies come to you before you pet them."

Madeleine burst out laughing, her face crinkling into amusement. She nodded, too taken aback to say anything, and Jenny flushed – well, maybe it had been a silly way to characterize the situation, but she had felt as if she needed to say something relatable.

"Is Mr. Franks there?" Madeleine asked, when she had stopped laughing.

Jenny nodded, licking her lips. She swallowed hard.

"He will go into town a little later and let us have some family time," she said.

Madeleine nodded. She bounced a little, and tried to wiggle out of Jenny's grip.

"Okay, okay," she placated. "Can we go now? I'll walk slow," she swore, crossing her heart. She looked at Jenny with big eyes and fluttering lashes, and Jenny sighed, standing up, ruffling her hair, and nodding.

She made a motion with her hand as if saying – lead the way! – and Madeleine took up the pace briskly – though clearly not as fast as she wanted to be going. Jenny followed, one length behind her, carrying their things dutifully – she didn't want Madeleine to be hindered – and keeping a sharp eye on the horizon, watching for any activity in that house.

It was high noon, and though it was October, the weather wasn't exactly balmy and cool in Mexico; it was still hot, and it was a little wet – they were just coming out of the rainy season. She tried to remind herself what Madeleine had said about not worrying how she looked, but she couldn't help fretting a little – she felt sweat on her brow from the sun, and tightness in her cheeks from her nerves – she just wished she looked better. She always seemed to face tense situations better if she felt like she was on a runway. It may seem shallow to her naïve daughter – but as a woman, Madeleine would probably learn as she grew up that to feel like a soldier, you wanted to look like a goddess.

The cushiony sand of the beach started to give way to harder, packed sand and Jenny wiggled her toes in her sandals as she felt grittiness and little seashells and felt moisture – she stopped a moment and bent carefully to take her shoes off and carry them – Madeleine went a few more steps, and then she stopped.

Jenny looked up to see what had impeded her, and blinked in the sun a few times – someone, and she knew immediately from the posture and the haircut that it was Gibbs, had strolled down the front steps of the cabin house and was adjusting a hat as he walked around the side of the house.

She started to straighten up, and took a step forward to take Madeleine's shoulder. She didn't have time to tell Madeleine to keep quiet or try to stay calm, because Madeleine immediately and excitedly cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted –

"_Daddy_!"

He had barely looked up and registered the noise before she shouted again –

"_Daddy! Aba!"_

Jenny squeezed Madeleine's shoulder tightly and compressed her lips, taking a deep, shaky breath. He was standing there – just standing there and staring at them, his hands at his sides. Jenny shifted her shoulders and let their two duffle bags fall to the sand, waiting uncertainly – she nudged Madeleine a little; it was alright to go see him, she thought.

Madeleine seemed unsure, though. She turned warily, and Jenny saw the first glint of apprehension and fear in her little green eyes – will he recognize me? Again, Jenny didn't have a chance to come up with something to say.

"_Emmy_?"

Hearing his voice for the first time – live, real, and raw, not over the phone – was refreshing and unexpectedly soothing. Her breath caught in her throat and she opened her eyes wider as he started to come forward, still looking uncertain.

"Emmy?" he called in a scratchy, half-skeptical voice. "Madeleine?"

Jenny opened her mouth, licking her lips nervously – and then, to her surprise, and to Madeleine's delight, Gibbs started jogging – and then he broke into a run, even kicking up a little sand as he made his way from the side of the house to the turf right in front of him.

He went down on one knee, one palm braced on his thigh – out of breath, to Jenny's surprise – and he squinted in near disbelief before reaching out with one hand and touching Madeleine's cheek.

"Emmy?" he asked hoarsely. "_Emmy_?" he repeated, almost suspiciously, desperately – softly.

She jumped up and down a little and nodded, letting out a squeal. He put his other leg down, kneeling in the sand in front of her, and threw his arms around her, pulling her close – his face disappearing into her shoulder until all Jenny could see was the silver hair on the top of his head.

She covered her mouth with her hand, pressing her fingers into her lips hard. She didn't dare interrupt the moment – he just knelt there, holding her, his arms wrapped so tightly around her that Madeleine's torso bent into him, and her feet were forced into the sand. She thought he'd suffocate; he kept his face buried against her breezy blouse for so long, and when he did lift his head – to pull back and cup Madeleine's cheek and take her in, Jenny realized it was because he'd been – he'd been -

His cheeks were wet and his eyes were red.

"Thought you were a mirage," he said gruffly, his thumb running over Madeleine's cheek gently – like he was making sure she was real.

"What's a mirage?" Madeleine asked breathlessly.

He cleared his throat; Jenny watched him swallow hard.

"It's, uh, thing people see, in the desert. When they're crazy," he trailed off, narrowing his eyes as he studied her. "That really you, Emmy-Jane?"

She nodded quickly, scrunching her nose and leaning forward to kiss his cheek. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I missed you so much, Daddy," she told him, pulling back a little to pat his face. She snickered, and beamed. "You need to shave."

He caught her hand and kissed her fingers, pressing his forehead against hers a moment. His eyes flicked up – and then he seemed to catch sight of Jenny, really notice her. He looked down a moment, slipped his arm around Madeleine and hugged her again, and then he straightened up, holding her close to his side. Madeleine sidled up to him and stuck like glue, holding on to the hand he had on her shoulder and peeking up at him.

He looked down at all the bags Jenny had brought with her, looked back at the house – and even looked down the beach; he was looking for the trick, the joke, the nightmare or the dream – and she cleared her throat softly.

In a perfect world, she'd have something memorably profound to say, at this first reconnection – but that wasn't the world she lived in, and as it were, she could barely manage –

"Hello, Jethro."

He looked her right in the eyes, his jaw tense, his arm tight around Madeleine. Then, he let go of their daughter, stepped forward, and pulled her close to him, one hand sliding around her shoulders, the other wrapping firmly around her middle and resting on her hip. His lips brushed against her cheek, hesitantly, and her shoulder, warily, and then he lifted his head, nudged her chin with his nose, and said –

"Hey, Jen."

She fumbled around quickly, trying to get her arms around him, and he moved a little, letting her slide her hands up his sides and then wind her arms around his, hanging on for dear life – so tightly – for just a moment before she let go and pulled her head back. He slipped his hand up her back to her neck, touched her face, and then ran his hand over her hair, looking at her intently – intimately – from underneath the frayed old hat. It was so odd to meet his eyes when he looked so vulnerable and so raw, and she parted her lips, her cheeks flushing.

He smiled at her a little.

She took a breath that sounded like a sob, and words tumbled out of her mouth.

"God, Jethro, you," she started, taking in his tan, sun-hardened skin, the deeper lines in his face – the silvery hair, long around his ears and scruffy on his face – and how he looked stronger, from work in the sun, and yet somehow older, and softer, at the same time. Her fingers dug into his back. "You haven't changed a bit," she said, with a little levity, and some disbelief.

He looked at her a moment, gauging her mood, and then lifted his chin a little, leaning close. He pulled the ends of her hair a little, just gently, maybe indicating he'd noticed it was shorter – not too short, just cut cleaner and neater – and he swallowed hard, shaking his head a bit in answer to her comment –

"Bull," he growled under his breath.

* * *

Madeleine was such a saving grace; she attached herself to her father in the most adorable of ways – she started talking the moment he let go of Jenny and she didn't stop – not when they got into the house, not to say hello to Mike Franks – she didn't stop for anything.

Gibbs took it in stride – if he was overwhelmed, he didn't show it; if he was confused by any of what she said, he didn't interrupt: he let her talk, and he sat down at a chair in the kitchen and pulled her close to him, his arm around her as she chattered and kept her eyes on him like she –

She hadn't seen him in months, had she?

It pulled at Jenny's heartstrings; it made her happy and impossibly sad at the same time. It was almost a relief, that Madeleine talked so much, and demanded Gibbs' attention – it gave Jenny a moment to gather her bearings, to have a moment alone with Franks.

She was still recovering from the affectionate greeting she'd just received. She wasn't sure what she had expected – not aggression, but some anger, surely – she'd thought he would glare, be silent, be totally focused on Madeleine; she hadn't expected to be hugged and touched and looked at, afforded the same welcome that he'd given Madeleine – in a slightly modified manner, as Jenny was his lover and not his daughter.

It had shaken her – though somewhere deep inside she couldn't acknowledge yet, it had made her feel whole – and she was glad to take a deep breath in a small, back room with a bed and a pallet full of colourful blankets.

Franks gestured with a grunt and threw one of the bags he'd grudgingly offered to carry onto the bed. He reached up to rub his chin, then scratched the back of his head and shrugged.

"It's all I got," he said. "Probie's been sleepin' here – so it's a recent addition," he added, a little sarcastically. "Kid okay on the floor with you two?"

Jenny nodded – Madeleine would be fine anywhere; she was at an age where sleeping anywhere other than her bed was exotic and adventurous. She didn't know any better.

Franks didn't ask about their journey or the hotel; he didn't make small talk and he got right down to brass tacks.

"Thought I'd go sleep in your hotel room in the city for a few nights," he said gruffly. "Figured you and Probie might not be quite up to sleepin' in the same bed yet."

Jenny nodded – that was thoughtful; much more thoughtful than she'd expected from the grizzly old agent, and truer than she wanted it to be. A part of her wanted to crawl into bed with Jethro for days and never leave – but there was Madeleine – and another part of her was afraid the illusion of his affectionate greeting would shatter once they were alone. She was still anxious, and nervous, and she might very well need to sleep alone one more night.

"If you two do decide the dry spell's up," Franks said, raising his voice – ostensibly so Gibbs could hear, "then the little kid sleeps in my bed, ya hear?" he shot Jenny a wary look and pointed. "You two use _that_ one."

Jenny cocked one eyebrow and tried not to smile at his crankiness – not that she blamed him. She respected his aversion to anyone getting up to any sort of physical intimacy in his bed, and she'd have arranged it like that without being told. She inclined her head a little.

"It shouldn't be a problem," she said in a neutral way, and he snorted.

He glanced out into the kitchen, and stepped closer.

"She ever stop talkin'?" he groused.

Jenny gave him a look.

"She hasn't seen him in half a year," she reprimanded quietly. "She's a Daddy's girl, despite only seeing him a grand total of three or four times before she was three. Don't you rain on her parade."

Franks held up his hands and shrugged, rolling his eyes. He grit his teeth and paced around a moment, as if he didn't know what to do.

"I ain't no therapist," he said finally. "You two do what you need to do, and you take 'im home," he growled. "'M sick of him."

Jenny could tell Franks was only half-serious; she managed a wry smirk.

"You'll miss him when he's gone," she teased. "I did. Tell you what – we'll work out a custody agreement – " she broke off as he glared at her, and she smiled, shaking her head.

She put her hand on her hip and pushed her hair back, taking a deep breath. She nodded her head a few times, as if to psyche herself up, and then she stepped forward, and touched Franks' shoulder.

"I really appreciate this," she said sincerely, catching his eye.

He glared at her grudgingly, nodded, and then shot a venomous look at her hand. She removed it primly and ran it through her hair again, taking a deep breath and starting towards the area where her daughter was still talking Gibbs' ear off.

"Tony and Ziva did my career day, because Mommy's security wouldn't let her and Abby was super swamped, and Ziva showed the whole class a knife and she got in trouble, and then she flipped Tony onto his back and all of us laughed at him and he pouted, it was so cute – but then they took me to get ice cream, and they bickered like you and Mom … "

Mike Franks rolled his eyes as they walked back in and he heard Madeleine still relentlessly talking, and Jenny smiled, taking what she hoped was an unassuming seat at the kitchen table across from Jethro and Madeleine.

Franks tweaked Gibbs' ear and cleared his throat.

"Told 'er I'd stay in town a night or two," he growled. He looked between them, and Jenny sensed something inappropriate was coming. "'M just warnin' ya, these walls are thin," he moved his finger around, indicating. "You get up to anything, you keep it down. I can sleep through anything," he said, pointing straight at Madeleine. "She's the one that will hear."

Madeleine swiveled, looking between Gibbs and Jenny.

"Hear what?" she asked, genuinely taken aback.

Jenny and Gibbs shot Franks simultaneously annoyed stares – and for a moment Jenny flicked her eyes to Gibbs, impressed and heartened by his instant paternal reaction to a comment like that in front of Madeleine. It made her feel a little better – and fueled her glare at Franks.

"Snoring," Franks gloated, smirking at Madeleine. He turned on his heel and marched to the fridge. "Hey Lady Director, you want a beer?" he asked.

Calmly, she demurred, and said –

"For the last time: I'm not the Director anymore."

Franks muttered something, and Madeleine turned.

"Mommy's new job is great," she said earnestly. "She can come to all my practices and games, and she's not as stressed – NCIS is okay without her, maybe, and Mr. Leon is nice, but without you _and_ her, I don't know, Pony might be having a psychotic break," Madeleine said.

Gibbs nodded, squeezing Madeleine's shoulder for the umpteenth time. She smiled and preened under his affection, and Gibbs looked at Jenny across the table, looking at her silently for a long time as he seemed to try and decide what to say – what conversations to have to start all this, to get back into the swing, what was okay to talk about in front of Mike.

"You likin' it at the NSA, Jen?" he asked neutrally.

She nodded her head slowly, a smile touching her lips.

"It's different," she said slowly. "It's a change." She cleared her throat as Franks set a glass of water down in front of her and slid a beer over to Gibbs. He even had a soda ready for Madeleine – he must have somehow figured out via Gibbs whatever her favorite was, because her eyes lit up and she beamed at him.

"Tell him about the guy who brings his service dog!" Madeleine piped up.

"Your father and I can talk about me later," Jenny said gently, and sincerely. She inclined her head, and lifted her water glass almost in a toast. "He's all yours right now, ahuva."

Madeleine tilted her head and giggled, turning back to her father and coming up with something else to talk about – and he, after looking at Jenny for a long moment, meeting her eyes intently, turned his attention to her, and absorbed himself in his daughter – and for now, that was exactly how Jenny wanted it.

* * *

The rest of that first day went by in what felt like a superficial blur; she didn't quite feel like she was really here, in Mexico, listening to Gibbs lavish attention on Madeleine while Madeleine tried to cram him full of information concerning what he'd missed. She let herself exist in the background – she helped Franks with dinner, kept up casual conversation where she could, and subtly let Gibbs know that she wasn't offended if he focused on Madeleine for the time being – she wasn't jealous, or anxious; that didn't bother her at all.

When night had fallen and Franks had skulked off to the city – to do God knows what before he settled up in the hotel room – Jenny calmly interrupted Madeleine's ceaseless conversation.

"Madeleine," she began gently, "why don't you get out some of your make-up schoolwork and get it out of the way?" she suggested. "Let everything you've said sink in."

Madeleine, to her surprise, didn't protest; she just nodded and ran for her little backpack.

"I'm going to miss two days, so I got some worksheets and stuff to help me keep up," she explained loudly, running back into the kitchen a few seconds later. "I'm starting to learn cursive, and it's so pretty," she added, climbing into a chair. "Can you write in cursive, Daddy?"

He shrugged, and shook his head.

"I can scratch my signature in it," he said. "Forgot most of it."

"My teacher said after fourth grade, they make you write in cursive and only cursive!"

"That's a lie," Gibbs said bluntly.

"Jethro," Jenny said, rolling her eyes. "If you tell her that, she won't practice."

"Yes I will!" Madeleine piped up earnestly. "I'll practice so I'm the only kid who remembers cursive so I can impress people!"

Gibbs held out his hand pointedly, palm up, and gave Jenny a smug look. She shook her head a little, her lips turning up, and got up to wash dishes – she had told Franks to leave them in the sink; it would give her something to do later.

She had turned on the water and was waiting for it to reach a bearable temperature when she heard chair legs scrape the ground, and the next moment a pair of red rubber gloves brushed her arm. She turned – Gibbs was standing there, offering them to her so she could use hotter water without burning her skin.

She took them, arching a brow.

"Franks has dishwashing gloves?" she asked skeptically.

Gibbs gave her a similar look.

"I bought dishwashing gloves," he corrected.

She resisted the urge to laugh, and just shook her head fondly – a couple jokes bubbled to her lips, but she didn't know where he was – or where they were – when it came to such things, so she kept them to herself; she didn't know how well accusing him of playing a wife to Franks would go over, considering what he was down here to sort out in the first place.

She slipped them on.

"Want help?" Gibbs asked.

She hesitated, then handed him a towel.

"Dry?" she offered.

He took it, but gave her a suspicious look.

"You complain about 'em bein' streaky when I do it," he said.

She did laugh, that time – he was right; she always bitched about that: pulling out Noemi's and her own dishes to show him how it should be done. She was glad he remembered such an innocuous detail – even if it was a negative side of her – he had been having trouble with little things like that, before. He'd attribute Shannon's quirks to her, and that bothered her to no end.

"I could care less about Franks' shitty dishes," she answered.

He arched a brow as she started scrubbing.

"We swear in front of Madeleine now?" he asked loftily.

Jenny elbowed him lightly.

"She isn't listening. She's in a deaf zone when she does homework. It's remarkable," Jenny said admiringly. She shrugged her shoulders a little. "It slipped," she added, reminding herself not to use language in front of Madeleine – she was good about it, but she forgot sometimes. She gave Gibbs a narrow look. "_That_ is nothing compared to what McGee said in front of her last week."

Gibbs looked a little taken aback.

"McGee?" he asked uncertainly.

Jenny could sense immediately she'd confused him; she nodded.

"McGee, yeah," she agreed slowly.

"Tony's the idiot," Gibbs said warily.

Jenny laughed, tilting her head back.

"Oh no, you have them right," she affirmed earnestly – she realized she'd made him think he was remembering wrong when she said it was McGee, jittery, polite little _McGee_, who'd been swearing like a sailor. "McGee was on the receiving end of a particularly asinine prank of Tony's and according to Madeleine, he threw out the M-F, the G-D, and the C word."

Gibbs stared at her, stunned. He glanced back at Madeleine – absorbed in copying cursive letters – and then leaned closer, lowering his voice.

"The c-u-next Tuesday word?" he asked.

She paused and gave him a look, taken aback. She nodded.

"McGee knows that word?" Gibbs muttered in disbelief.

"How do _you_ know that Tuesday trick?" Jenny asked, curious. She handed him the first dish – grime free and scrubbed clean of its greasiness.

Gibbs didn't answer for a moment. It had come back to him suddenly, and he was trying to figure out when exactly he'd heard that acronym – or whatever you called it. He cleared his throat sheepishly.

"Wasn't always asleep when you watched that show in the middle of the night, in Europe and Israel," he said reluctantly.

"You were laying in bed _faking_ sleep and listening to _Sex and the City_?" Jenny asked.

He shrugged, and didn't answer.

"That show is weird," Madeleine said, coming out of her reverie. "Can I have some more soda?"

Gibbs checked his watch.

"Water," he said automatically – being a physically present parent came back to him instantly; it was after eight, there was no way she was drinking soda.

Madeleine made a face and waited while Gibbs poured her some water from a large carton in the refrigerator. He gave her a stern look, and Jenny turned with her hand on her hip, ignoring that she got a little hot water and soap on her t-shirt.

"What are you talking about, Madeleine Jane? You've _never_ seen that." There was an edge of warning to her voice.

"Emily gets to watch the edited version," Madeleine whined. "She was watching it once while we waited for Mr. Toby to take me home, and then her mom turned it off and yelled at her. She always gets yelled at when I'm there."

Gibbs stared at Madeleine, and then nudged her back to the table with a quick pat on the head. He moseyed back over to Jenny and gave her a curious look.

"How old is – "

"I think she turned twelve recently," Jenny said, scrubbing a little harder in irritation. "I can't believe Diane lets a twelve-year-old watch that stuff. Even edited – Madeleine, you will not be watching television like that anytime soon," she said, throwing the last words over her shoulder.

Madeleine snorted.

"I don't care," she retorted. "I don't get it. The ladies have lots of sex and no babies. Gross," she said, and then began scratching something with her pencil in such a nonchalant way, she completely missed the pained-yet-thunderstruck look on her father's face.

Gibbs grabbed Jenny's elbow and pressed his fingers in. The look on his face was so stricken Jenny almost felt sorry for him. She reached over with a rubbery hand and patted his wrist, handing him another dish sympathetically.

"Ah," she said, keeping her voice quiet. "We had the sex talk two weeks ago."

He looked like he'd been struck by lightening, and then he looked annoyed, and then uncomfortable. Jenny tried to lighten the mood. She shrugged.

"You dodged _that_ bullet," she hissed.

He gave her a look – not a great reminder, she figured. He glanced back at Madeleine and narrowed his eyes, brow furrowing.

"Isn't she kind of young?"

Jenny shrugged.

"She _asked_. I don't want some lunatic kid at school telling her something false or unhealthy," she answered.

Gibbs grit his teeth.

"How'd it go?" he grunted quietly.

Jenny smirked.

"Eh, she asked a few technical questions and then told me I was gross but she appreciated me going through that for her."

Gibbs laughed. Jenny paused, and smiled – his laugh sounded so genuine; so healthy, and it made her smile even more. It even touched his eyes – and his laughter back in the spring, after the coma, had seemed so forced and mirthless.

"Hope you enjoyed it a little more than that, Jen," he said.

She bit her lip and shot him a look through her lashes, nodding silently and falling back into quiet as she continued washing dishes. The sound of water and of Madeleine tapping her foot as she copied letters filled the room, and Gibbs dutifully and carefully dried dishes, seemingly unbothered by the lack of conversation.

He cleared his throat after a moment and shifted closer, his hip brushing hers. She swallowed, her hands shaking a little. This felt so familiar and yet so new, and that gave her shivers or chills or – butterflies? It was like flirting – but with an old flame – trying to grasp the way things used to be – were supposed to be.

He put down the dish she'd handed him, and the towel, and he pinched her gently on the shoulder, catching her attention. She paused and turned her head, and she met his eyes. He swallowed hard, a muscle in his temple throbbing.

"I missed you, Jen," he said in a low voice. He moved his chin slightly towards Madeleine, and then back to her. "Not just her."

Jenny let her hands sit in soapy water for a moment, and then she took a deep breath, letting relief was over her, and giving herself a moment to let go of some of her nerves. She bit her lip, and tilted her head.

"I missed you too, Jethro," she answered honestly.

He smiled at her, and she felt like a weight had been lifted off of her.

* * *

She went with her gut and chose not to sleep in the same bed with him just yet – but she should have known Madeleine would want Gibbs to sleep in the same room with her. She'd manage to find some spare sheets in a closet, and she'd changed the ones on Frank's bed to be respectful – and Madeleine had fallen asleep before Gibbs could read to her – though she'd brought all their favorites - -because she was a little over-excited and jetlagged.

Despite how well the initial reunion had gone, Jenny hadn't spent much time with Gibbs once Madeleine had gone to bed, and he'd seemed tired and worn from the exertion of the day – so, they went to bed, and the next morning she was woken up by the smell of coffee and salt water and Mike Franks dragging his feet around and growling.

"He puts chocolate chips _and_ blueberries in my pancakes," Madeleine was saying. "Then we top them with powdered sugar. You can try one of mine, but only a little. I eat a lot."

Jenny pinched her cheeks a few times, tied up her hair, and sighed about the lack of place to fix her face – she grabbed a compact and brushed on the barest amount of powder before she emerged from Frank's bedroom – and he glared at her royally when she stepped into the kitchen.

"Morning, Ima," Madeleine said brightly, peering over a large glass of milk and swinging her legs at the table. Gibbs was dressed, and had the fryer going over by the stove – he must be making his signature Madeleine pancakes.

Franks grabbed something off the counter and thrust it at Jenny. She almost dropped it, she was so taken aback – but she saved it at the last minute and turned it over.

"Someone," Franks growled, jerking his thumb at Gibbs, "bought that crap for _you_," he sneered, sounding incredibly unhappy about it.

Jenny read the name of the cereal – _Special K _– and smiled, flicking her eyes over to Gibbs' back. That was her favorite healthy breakfast cereal – he'd remembered.

"Don't know why anyone eats that rabbit junk," Franks grumbled.

"Mommy wants to be healthy so she'll be around forever," Madeleine said solemnly.

"She gonna nag you into an early grave?" Franks retorted, more to Gibbs than the little girl.

Jenny shot him a warning look, and Gibbs turned around at that moment with a plate, placing it and its two golden pancakes in front of Madeleine.

"Mike," he said roughly, shooting him a look. "She's eight."

"I don't got any experience with kids. What's the difference in eight and sixteen?" Franks groused.

Gibbs glared at him, annoyed.

"A PG movie and an R one," he grunted.

Franks rolled his eyes, muttered, and sat down good-naturedly.

"You fryin' any bacon, Probie?"

Gibbs just nodded, and then handed a carton of milk to Jenny.

"You sleep okay?" he asked quietly, leaning over her shoulder to give her a bowl, as well.

"Mm-hmm," she answered. "Thanks for asking."

He nodded and shrugged.

"Madeleine, how was your night?" Jenny asked.

"Um, Daddy snores. You can have him tonight," Madeleine said bluntly.

Jenny snickered – that didn't surprise her. Gibbs handed Jenny a spoon and then thrust a plate of bacon unceremoniously at Franks before he sat down himself, turning the stove burner on low. He didn't waste a second.

"Emmy, you want to go horseback riding?" he asked.

Her face lit up, and she bounced, eagerly chewing a mouthful and swallowing.

"Yes!" she burst out. "I want to ride a _white_ horse."

Gibbs nodded indulgently. He looked to Jenny.

"Thought we could rent 'em for a beach ride," he suggested. "Spend the day on the beach, take her to some of the tourist shops in the city," he went on.

Jenny nodded – it all sounded fine. She leaned back, holding her bowl in her hand.

"You like that idea, ahuva?" she asked.

Madeleine nodded rapidly, a smile permanently glued on her face.

"You oughta go fishin'," Franks grunted, offering his opinion. "Down in that cove, down the beach."

Gibbs didn't answer. He shook his head after a moment, and made a negative noise in the back of his throat. Franks shrugged, and got up with his plate, tossing it in the sink.

"'M goin' to look for firewood, see if anything's washed up on the beach," he announced, disappearing quickly.

Gibbs nodded after him, and turned to Madeleine.

"He's doin' that so we can build a bonfire," Gibbs said gruffly. "You think on your last night here, you'd like campin' on the beach?"

Madeleine squealed and nodded again, her mouth too full to say anything. Gibbs grinned, proud he was getting things right and making her happy. She swallowed and tilted her little head.

"Why don't you want to go fishing, Daddy?" she asked.

"Your mom hates it," Gibbs said, and Jenny nodded in confirmation, so Madeleine wouldn't think it was a lie. He paused and sat back, forcing a quick, slightly unhappy smile. "I…I took Kelly fishin' when she was little," he said gruffly. "Thought you'n'me could do different stuff."

Madeleine licked her lips.

"Oh, okay," she said breezily. She perked up, and then scrambled out of her chair. "I brought her dog tag!" she called, dashing out of the room – the dog tag she'd meant to send to him, that matched the _Daddy_ dog tag he wore around his neck.

Jenny set her bowl down and leaned forward, rubbing her arms lightly and looking over at Gibbs slowly. She smiled in what she hoped was a sympathetic and encouraging way. He avoided her gaze for a moment, and then looked over.

"How's that?" he asked dryly, cocking a brow stiffly. "Better'n before?"

She compressed her lips at the heartfelt concern he expressed and took his hand, lacing her fingers into his and squeezing firmly. She brushed her nose against his shoulder, and then pressed her lips against his t-shirt, kissing the material into his skin.

"Better," she murmured confidently.

Madeleine came careening back in – and the day started to unfold.

* * *

Madeleine adored horseback riding – she loved the shops in the city, she loved finding shells on the beach; she loved the warm weather and the sound of a language she didn't know; she loved waves and sea creatures and she loved that she was finally with her father – and Jenny was content to see her happy, and more and more sure every day that Gibbs was okay; that he was ready to come home.

He made sure Madeleine was never bored – though Jenny was sure she'd have been thrilled to just sit and play cards with him all day, or just talk and talk and talk – but still, he took her to do things, he showed her around, he introduced her to people he'd met – he mentioned Kelly occasionally, telling Madeleine about her a little – and it seemed more natural for him; easier for him.

The way things progressed were a relief – and by their third day in Mexico, Monday, Madeleine's October Holiday, Jenny felt absolutely certain she would be able to hand Gibbs his ticket home – she decided that almost irrevocably as she walked along the beach with him, his arm slung around her shoulder, and a subtly, peach-coloured towel draped over her arm.

It was late after dinner – they'd been walking for ages, down past the pier and the cove and a small village – and now they walked back, in more of a state of disarray; she'd left with a light cardigan on, in shorts and flip flops and a breezy blouse, with her hair up – and now it was down, and her shoes were in her hand and the cardigan was tangled up with the towel – and though Gibbs had put his shirt back on as the cabin appeared on the horizon, his hat was tucked into his back pocket, and the dog tags he wore were still tangled and hanging down his back instead of his front.

They hadn't _specifically_ gone off alone to resume some of the – ah, physical intimacy – they'd been missing, but Gibbs hadn't grabbed a towel for his own health. Madeleine had been told gently but firmly that tonight was for Mommy and Daddy to have a long talk and be alone, and she was back at the cabin with Franks – forcing him to watch the Disney movies downloaded onto Jenny's tablet.

Gibbs moved his hand over her shoulders, stroking her neck and tangling his fingers in her hair lightly. She leaned into his side ever so slightly, lazily letting him lead the walk, and she looked around at the darkness, listening to the ocean. It had been nice background noise, for a while there; now it was loud and soothing, a sound track to the night.

Gibbs looked up at the inky black sky, and then he cleared his throat.

"What do you think?" he asked gruffly, in his old tone – she was reminded of her days working for him, and of working over him; hearing him ask that over and over: _what do you think, what do you got?_

She let the question settle for a moment, and then cracked a small smile.

"Hmm, the sex?" she mused quietly, feigning innocence. "It seemed … hastier than usual."

He glared at her.

"S'been six months, Jen," he growled.

She laughed.

"I hope so," she threatened, and he pinched her lazily.

He shot her a look and tugged on her hair a little, pausing outside the cabin. He glanced up at the doors.

"S'not what I mean," he said quietly, and she nodded, biting her lower lip. "You came to test me," he said, stepping aside and holding his arms out.

She shook her head, lifting her hand and brushing her lips with her fingers.

"No, Jethro, I didn't," she said softly. "I – we – came to see you," she told him sincerely – she wanted him to know that, unequivocally. She and Madeleine had desperately wanted to see him.

He opened his mouth, but Franks interrupted him, storming out onto the deck and glaring at them. He squinted in the dark.

"You two done?" he groused, folding his arms. "I feel like I'm watchin' curfew for two teenagers," he barked, and then stepped forward, nodding his head. "Most action that towel's seen in fifteen years," he snorted, smirking to himself.

Jenny rolled her eyes good-naturedly and went up to the first step, resting her hand on the railing.

"Madeleine?" she asked simply.

"She's fallin' asleep sittin' up," Franks retorted. "I been sittin' through all kinds of pansy crap, Probie," he whined. "_Lady and the Tramp,_ _Enchanted." _

"_Enchanted_ isn't that bad," Gibbs retorted, deadpan.

Franks glared at him, and Jenny smirked, coming up the steps.

"I'll tuck her in," she said. She paused, and met Franks' eyes. "You'll give us some time, then?" she asked – she needed more time alone with Gibbs; she wanted Franks on guard for Madeleine.

He nodded shortly, left with Gibbs for a moment while Jenny persuaded a groggy Madeleine to get up, brush teeth, wash her face, and change into pajamas. Madeleine asked if she could watch one episode of _Phineas and Ferb_ before bed, and Jenny agreed rather than fight it – she'd probably go right to sleep.

Jenny kissed her, then her father came in and kissed her – and they went back on the porch, while Franks growled and grumbled and went back inside. They heard him pop a beer and shut the door to the back – probably smoking, as Jenny had expressly asked him not to do so in the house, and there was a covered area out back now – thanks to Gibbs.

Jenny sat down on the top step of the stairs, her eyes on Gibbs as he stood on the sand, one foot propped up on the bottom step. She was quiet for a long time, and then she thought it might be best to start – well, where he'd started.

"There was never a specific checklist," she started quietly. "I didn't … come here, or send you away … with a bunch of bullet points in mind that you had to meet." She paused, and took a deep breath. "I felt like … when you were better, I would know. You would know."

She met his eyes, and chewed her lip a moment.

"You weren't okay, Jethro," she said quietly, her voice shaking. "You have to understand that. You know it, don't you?" she shook her head a little.

"I know."

She went on anyway.

"I don't want you to believe I was too weak to support you or that I was being cruel. I had to do something. I had to snap you out of it. This – this might not have been ideal," she paused, her voice cracking, "but Jethro, you weren't seeing it from our point of view."

He nodded, and came forward. He climbed the stairs slowly, sat down stiffly, and turned to her, studying her a long time.

"I still don't know if I did the right thing," she said hoarsely. "But you are so – the man I have spent the past few days with is right; you're _better_ – "

He interrupted her.

"I get it, Jen," he said. He started to go on, but she shook her head.

"I do want you to come home, Jethro," she told him sincerely. Her lips trembled, and she reached for his knee, squeezing. "I shouldn't … I shouldn't have forced you away from Madeleine. She's so young and, and she was scared, and it hurt her when you called her Kelly. But I miss you. We – _I_ need you to come home. I love you."

He leaned forward, and took her face in his hands, silent as the grave, his eyes on her intently – he hadn't taken them off of her for her whole unexpected speech.

"I know who you are, Jen," he said gruffly, his thumb brushing her lip. "I never wanted you to be Shannon."

She bit her lip, and reached up to touch his hand –

* * *

Madeleine had never before experienced the meaning of the phrase 'to grab someone by the scruff of the neck' – but that changed when Franks came in from his cigarette, went to check that she'd put her tablet away like her mother asked, and caught her crouched by the screen door spying on her parents.

He yanked her up in a way that was somehow gentle and firm at once – but it didn't hurt – and then he set her on her feet and nudged her into the kitchen with a glare.

"You ain't supposed to be out of bed," he growled at her, pulling out a chair and pointing at it. "Sit. You thirsty or somethin'?" he asked rapidly. He wasn't too sure how to deal with kids, but he knew they got up and asked for water sometimes – though he thought it was pretty obvious she hadn't been lookin' for a beverage.

She flushed and leaned forward.

"I wanted to listen," she whined, ignoring his question.

"You ain't supposed to be listenin' in on your parents' private conversations," he said bluntly. "Or anybody's. Someone wants you to know somethin', they'll tell you themselves."

He got up and started looking through cupboards.

"Might as well give you a snack," he grunted, shrugging. "You ain't goin' to sleep anytime soon, are you?"

She shook her head while he struggled to find something tasty a kid would like and could eat. He finally found a package of cookies Probie must have bought, and he got them out and offered them to her, sitting down diagonal to her. She munched on one, sittin' there looking at him like a little version of the two adults outside, monopolizing his porch.

"I heard Mommy say she loves Daddy," Madeleine confided. "They don't say that to each other very much," she added primly.

Franks gave her a serious look, and pointed.

"That's what I'm talkin' about," he said. "You can't be listenin' in when they're being … mushy," he muttered.

"Why?" Madeleine asked, brow furrowed sincerely.

Franks narrowed his eyes.

"People don't like it," he growled. "Your old man especially. It makes 'im jumpy."

"Daddy isn't as old as you."

"It's an expression."

"Are you callin' Daddy a grasshopper, Mr. Franks?" Madeleine asked sweetly.

Frank gave her a look, and humored her for a minute. He leaned forward seriously, and met her eyes sternly.

"You got to let him talk to your mom," he said tightly.

Madeleine fell silent, biting into a cookie. She chewed unobtrusively for a moment, and then she sat up and leaned forward, lowering her voice, pleading green eyes boring into his.

"Mike Franks," she began formally, "Can we take Daddy home with us?"

Franks, steeling himself so that the question didn't make him feel anything, gave her an incredulous look.

"Can you?" he growled. "You damn well better. All he does is whine about how much he misses you and your Mama," Franks complained, giving her a rare wink. "I'm tryin' to ignore the world in peace down here – little girl, you better take him back if it's the last thing you do."

Madeleine beamed, and offered Franks a cookie.

* * *

–She didn't miss the sound of scuffling in the doorway, but she chose to ignore it. Gibbs glanced behind him at the door, narrowing his eyes sternly – unbeknownst to Jenny he saw Franks wave his hand, indicating he'd taken care of the eavesdropper and they were essentially alone again.

"I was in bad shape, Jen," he admitted. "Took me a long time to figure that out," he conceded grudgingly.

She squeezed his hand, and he let go of her face, touching her hair a moment, and then letting his hands fall to his lap. He clasped them between his knees and shrugged.

"I was pissed at you," he admitted. "Blamin' you was easier than dealin' with … all of it," he said gruffly, gesturing a little.

He fell silent, and looked over the ocean.

"Did Madeleine bring home some little boat from Dad's house?" he asked abruptly.

Jenny blinked, caught off guard. She thought about it, and then nodded slowly.

"She did," she told him quietly. "Jackson said it was the first boat you ever built. You named it after your mother, before she died."

Gibbs nodded along with the story. He hadn't remembered that old thing until Madeleine had brought it up, but it had come back so clearly, and over the past month he'd understood something about what he needed to do to finally let go of all this.

"My mom told me – you name a boat after someone, they live forever," he forced out with difficulty, his voice a little hoarse. "S'like you're settin' 'em free."

Jenny nodded, watching him talk. Gibbs reached for his throat, tugging at the dog tags and pulling them to hold in his hands. He looked at them, squinting in the dark, and clutched them tightly in his hand.

"Emmy reminded me," he muttered. "She said you hung Kel – Kelly's on the boat," he added gruffly. "It gave me the idea."

Jenny pursed her lips, waiting a moment.

"What idea?" she asked finally.

He ran a hand over his jaw, then over his eyes, his head in his hands after a moment. He ran it back through his hair, and looked over at her and met her eyes intently.

"I'm better, Jen," he said hoarsely. "I'm good. 'M not livin' in the past. It won't happen again," he paused. "I want to name the boat after her," he said finally, and then, through gritted teeth: "Kelly."

Jenny swallowed hard, her heart beating in her throat. Immediately, it felt like an act that would suit him perfectly, that would help him finally commit that last act of letting go, and she thought it was brilliant and profound – but she didn't know how to express that immediately, and he began to look wary.

"I can't erase them, Jen," he forced out, almost pleading. "You can live with that, can't you? I got to keep 'em here," he thumped his hand, dog tags and all, against his heart. "Thing is, I just know there's plenty of space for you and Emmy, too."

She reached for his hand and took it, holding it tightly in hers. She nodded quickly before she could manage her words, and some tears slipped out of her eyes because she just didn't have the energy to stop them.

"I never wanted you to erase them," she promised. "No, Jethro, don't ever think I want you to forget about them or never bring them up. I wanted you to grieve; to let go. It's different than forgetting," she said. She dug her fingers into his fist, and touched the dog tag that had belonged to his daughter. "Name the boat after her," she encouraged, her eyes on his. "It's hers, Jethro. That boat is hers, for all the hours you've put into it, alone down there, feeling guilty and miserable. You can finish it with a lighter heart."

He clutched her fingers and nodded, staring at her for a long time.

"It's been hard, Jethro," she admitted.

He nodded.

"You happy at the new job?" he asked quietly.

She took a deep breath, and nodded.

"I never thought I'd leave NCIS – "

"Why'd you do it, Jen?"

"Isn't it time I made a sacrifice?" she asked boldly, her voice soft. "Year after year since Madeleine was born, it's been you doing it: flying to see her, taking custody while I pursue promotions, keeping quiet when I took a superior job without talking to you – you've always made the sacrifices, Gibbs. You sacrificed six months with her to ensure you were being the best father possible. Wasn't it – isn't it my turn?"

He smirked, and looked down at his feet. After a moment, a huge smile broke out over his face, and he started to nod. He turned to her, and he gave her a look, laughing a little.

"Yeah," he agreed, as if he'd just thought of it. "It's your turn."

She smiled and turned towards him, leaning forward. She grasped his neck in her hands, tilted her head, and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her back – and she thought of everything they'd been through this year; the explosion, the coma, the horrible weeks after, the long, lonely months in between.

He ran his hands through her hair and then moved his lips over her jaw.

"I love you, Jen," he murmured – not hesitation, no trouble, no force; he said it easily, and she closed her eyes tightly, her forehead pressed into his chest for a moment.

She leaned back, her fingers pressing into his shirt. She met his eyes, and she pursed her lips.

"I bought you a plane ticket," she confided, her voice hoarse. She took a deep breath, and laughed a little. "We didn't come to visit. We came to get you."

He shrugged, but she could tell he was relieved, excited, damn happy – and he nudged her cheek with his nose, and smirked.

"You couldn't have kept me away much longer," he growled in her ear.

She smiled, her lip caught between his teeth.

"It's important," he grunted, looking at her intently.

"Hmm?" she asked.

He grinned, and she moved closer to him, already anticipating telling Madeleine Daddy was coming home.

"What's important?" she asked again, her voice lower.

He gave her a look, and rolled his eyes – like she didn't know?

"_Mishpokhe_," he said, and kissed her full on the lips.

* * *

_-the rearranging of the 'you haven't changed a bit line' is probably my crowning achievement in fanfiction to be honest. _

_-Alexandra_

_**surprise: there will be a bonus epilogue (only like 200 words) post in a few days!**_


	5. Bonus Addendum

_as promised - _

* * *

October, 2008.

* * *

From a most unexpected source, he had found a way to let his late wife and child rest in peace. It had been a long time since he had remembered his youth, and all the things his mother taught him; he'd always spent so long looking forward, and then so much time wallowing in a specific part of the past that consumed him – he'd forgotten life lessons; he'd forgotten he'd dealt with grief before, and found happiness further down beyond the pain, and doing so again was a choice in his hands and his hands only.

It was Ann Gibbs who spoke to him through Jackson and Madeleine; who reminded him in a quaint, simple way, that it was possible for Shannon and Kelly to live forever: remembered, cherished, and memorialized – and a way for this to happen simultaneously with himself living in peace with the girls he had now.

After flights and goodbyes, helloes and promises and settling in, he sat in the basement on a low stool, a fresh light bulb illuminating his view, and thick stencils by his feet, and Jen came down with a cup of coffee and a ceramic bowl full of purple liquid – Madeleine had picked the colour – and Jen set the coffee down beside him, handed him the bowl, and kissed his cheek softly, squeezing his shoulder for comfort.

When she left, and he was alone, he swirled a brush around in the purple iridescence, and began to paint –

**_K-E-L-L-Y_**

* * *

_thank you !_  
_-Alexandra_


End file.
